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^wentictb Century SbaFiespeare 



AS YOU LIKE IT 



By WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 



Edited with introduction and notes 
By CYRUS LAURON HOOPER 

Of the North-West Division High 
School, Chicago 






CHCAGO 

AINSWORTH & COMPANY 
1904 






.^S!*l| 



Two copies iRecetved 

SEP 16 1904 

0LAS3 ^XXo, Na 
' COPY B / 



- &^ = iako s poar .i a{ia 



Copyright, 1904 
By C. L. HOOPER 



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^ 



EDITOR'S NOTE. 

This edition of "As You Like It " is the fourth of the series. A 
statement of the general plan and purpose will be found in the first 
of the series, " Julius Caesar." The text used is that of the Claren- 
don Press, but the numbering of the lines in the prose scenes is dif- 
ferent. 



SHAKESPEARE'S STORIES. 



The human mind is so constructed that it demands activity. 
Always it is reaching out, lazily sometimes, often actively, and 
occasionally with fierce energy, for entertainment and instruction. 
No waking moment is free from thoughts that troop through the 
mind languidly, march by with steady resolution, or flash into view 
and out again with fiery velocity; and in those half conscious 
moments called waking and going to sleep, our mental images, con- 
fused, undirected by the will, are alive, tangling themselves into 
strange confusions of thought called dreams. The baby grasping 
for the moon, the small boy straddling a stick and calling it a 
horse, the little girl cooing over a ragged doll, the young man or 
woman dreaming over old tales, the middle-aged person pondering 
upon books, or the old and decrepit drowsily reflecting upon times 
long gone, are all in the stream of mental activity that begins at birth 
and ceases only with death. Young people reflect too little upon the 
wonder of all this. The tree you carve your name on, or the stone 
you send skipping along the surface of the smooth water, cannot 
think; no airy images, no delightful confusion of dreams, no con- 
scious satisfaction of problems correctly solved, come to them to 
make their existence either grave or gay. The tree sprouts, grows, 
dies, returns to dust ; the stone is formed, exists unnumbered ages, 
and is worn away by the washing of waves on the beach, or is 
ground under the passing wheels, and neither leaves any visible trace 
behind : but the human mind is something higher than this dull, dead 
matter ; it feels ; it knows ; it can hold all the universe in its grasp, 
and when the mortal body dies, something yet remains, as most 
people believe, which is immortal, which still can think and feel in 
a region not disclosed to the eyes of the body. And yet you sel- 
dom think of the wonder of it. 

This stream of consciousness has been growing since the birth 
of man. Our earliest ancestor doubtless thought of little but of such 
practical problems as how to kill a deer or catch a fish for his 
savage family to pull to pieces and devour raw, or how to barricade 
the mouth of his cave to keep the bears out ; but when, the num- 
ber of the race having increased about him, experience made the 
solution of these problems easier, his mental activity ranged about 
for new conquests. Now he made clothing, weapons of war and 
the chase, dug him boats out of logs, built him houses, discovered 
fire, joined with his fellows for protection, tilled the fields, made 
cities, speculated upon his origin and destiny, upon the source from 



vi SHAKESPEARE'S STORIES. 

which the world sprung, and upon the great unseen power behind 
it; and thus began what we call civilization, with all its arts and 
sciences, its philosophies and religions. And each age has been the 
heir of all that have preceded it. The mental product of any age is 
passed down to the next, and so the cumulation proceeds. 

Now all this is a brief hint at the way in which our race has 
instructed itself. It is impossible to believe that entertainment has 
not gone along with instruction ; for while m.an has always worked, 
in the intervals he has loved to play. No doubt the children of 
the cave man, barricaded in their rude home through the long dark 
days when their father was abroad at the chase, played games about 
the fire while their mother busied herself with the duties of her 
pre-historic household. And the elders, too, engaged in contests of 
strength with their neighbors for the common amusement. Then, 
again, there must have been stories as they sat about the fire in the 
dark cave, when the shadows danced over the rock walls — stories 
of the chase, of encounters with hostile men ; stories of the deities 
that gradually came to be believed in as inhabitants of trees and 
streams and mountains, and as the vital principles of earth, air, fire 
and water. These stories, of course, made young eyes start and 
young hair stand up, as their lineal descendants do now. 

I say " lineal descendants," for someone has taken the trouble 
to shov»r that all our multitude of stories came from an original few, 
and that modern story tellers merely tell old tales over again, thus 
perpetuating what grew up with the race in its childhood. Indeed, 
our foremost American novelist, Mr. W. D. Howells, says that all 
stories are old, and that as it is useless to attempt the making of a 
new one, the modern novelist should make his main endeavor the 
picturing of commonplace life of his own age. There is much truth 
in his theory. All stories, in whatever age or clime, must deal with 
human passions, such as envy and love. And if the story be of 
envy, the envious ones will try to get the desired thing away from 
the envied one or to injure him : hence, a story of rivalry. Here 
you have Achilles pouting in his tent, willing to injure the Greek 
cause on account of his disappointment in not getting the cap- 
tive maiden of his choice ; and you have Pompey, jealous of the 
growing power of Caesar, warring against him at Rome and in the 
field, finally meeting his death at the battle of Pharsalia ; and you 
have lago against Othello, and Macbeth against Duncan ; always 
envy and its consequences. And if the story be of love, the lover 
will try to win the maiden, always against obstacles — such as dif- 
ferences in rank and wealth, or, more frequently, perhaps, obstinate 



Note. — Every boy and every girl should read that wonderful pic- 
ture of this rude cave life, " The Story of Ab," by Stanley Water- 
loo. It is as good a story for the young as was ever written. 



SHAKESPEARE'S STORIES. vii 

parents, who venture to oppose their unsentimental judgments 
against the strength of warm hearts. Here you have the story of 
Hero and Leander, of Pyramus and Thisbe, of Romeo and Juliet. 
In the fundamental events of these tales there is a striking similar- 
ity : it is the character of the persons, the nature of the attendant 
circumstances, that supply the differences, and deceive us into 
believing that the story is new. There is scarcely a critical event 
in a modern novel that is not, essentially, a repetition of some older 
story. Nor would it be difficult to mention two or three writers 
who always tell the same story — always the same young, beautiful 
and persecuted maiden, the heir of poverty and unparalleled virtue, 
the same rich youth, who has the same highborn and haughty 
.mother, and always the same conquering of this same highborn 
haughty mother by the same acts of the same impossible devotion 
and self-sacrifice of the heroine : then, finally, the same elaborate 
wedding, and the same undying bliss. Over these novels, the sen- 
timental girl weeps copiously, as unconscious as the novelist her- 
self that each one is a repetition of the one that preceded it. So 
limited is the number of incidents available for purposes of fiction, 
that a certain American writer began most of his books with the 
same picture — that of a " solitary horseman " appearing at the 
brow of a hill and looking down upon a castle. Out of respect for 
his connections, who are literary in the extreme, his name is not 
mentioned here. 

Yes, all stories are old, very old. Love, hate, jealousy, ambition, 
are always love, hate, jealousy, ambition; and the stories about them 
cannot differ greatly in their essential events. It is he who tells old 
tales in a new way, infusing into them the glow of his own soul, 
that we hail as a genius. He deceives us into believing that his old 
story is new. All purveyors of fiction do this, and he who did it 
most consciously, most openly, most honestly, is the one v/hom v/e 
honor most. 

Now of all Shakespeare's thirty-seven plays, only two ("A Mid- 
summer Night's Dream " and the " Tempest ") had plots that "Were 
constructed by the poet himself ; and even in these the origin of 
parts may be traced. Availing himself of a custom of the time, he 
dramatized old but popular tales whose lineage was lost in the past, 
as in the case of " Romeo and Juliet ; " historical stories from 
ancient writers, especially Plutarch, as in the case of " Julius 
Caesar ; " and the events of English history, taken from Holinshed's 
Chronicles. Some of this material he obtained from old plays 
written by less skillful poets, and others from their original sources. 
It must not be thought that Shakespeare suffered from a lack of 
ability to devise his own plots : the creator of " The Tempest " and 
"A Midsummer Night's Dream " had no lack of ability to weave 
events and human lives in the loom of his fancy. He took his 



viii SHAKESPEARE'S STORIES. 

plots from well-known stories because those stories were well known, 
and popular, and, dramatized, would attract immediate attention. 
Have we not modern instances in plenty? The stage of to-day often, 
perhaps too often, offers dramatizations of popular novels — not 
necessarily because these stories are better than those the play- 
wrights could devise, but because they are already popular, and can 
at once command attention. So, in the case of Shakespeare. It was 
not his conscious intention to produce literature ; it was his purpose, 
rather, to produce plays that would make the pennies, sixpences and 
shillings of the populace rattle in the strong box of the Globe and 
the Blackfriars ; and hence the adoption of the events of history and 
of stories that are the common heritage of man. It is fortunate for 
us that this careless, unconscious genius breathed into each tale the 
breath of his own life — turned what was, in many cases, dull, dead 
facts, into living events of intensely human significance. The mere 
events are of little importance : the great fact in the writing of the 
plays was Shakespeare himself. You and I can still get the primeval 
love story from a score of sources, but we cannot write another 
" Romeo and Juliet." 

The origin of this wonderful tale has been a puzzle to the crit- 
ics. A search of the usual authorities results in learning the usual 
facts — that the story of Romeo and Juliet was written by Lugui da 
Porto, and printed in Venice in 1535; that in 1554 Bandello pub- 
lished at Lucca a novel on the same subject; that not long after, 
Boisteau, a Frenchman, having read the Italian stories, wrote one 
for his countrymen with such differences as pleased him; that an 
Englishman, Mr. Arthur Brooke, having read the Frenchman's story, 
made it into a poem with the somewhat formidable title, " The 
Tragicall Hystory of Ronieus and Juliet, containing a rare Example 
of true Constancie ; with the sybtill Counsels, and Practices of an 
old Fryer, and their ill event ; " and finally, that from this, Shake- 
speare took his plot for the greatest love story in the world. This 
much being known to a fair degree of certainty, other facts 
demand our attention and interest, as these, — that Shakespeare was 
indebted also to some translation of Boisteau's novel, probably the 
one published by Painter in his " Palace of Pleasure ; " that the 
incidents of the play are to be found in the Ephesiacs of Xenophon 
of Ephesus, a romance of the Middle Ages ; that they are to be 
found in the thirty-third novel of Masuccio di Salerno, published, 
with the author's other tales, in 1476 ; that an Italian, Groto, said 
that the events of the story happened in ancient times in his own 
town, Adria; that another Italian, Girolamo de la Corte, by name, 
says that these same events happened in the year 1303 at Verona, 
where the home of the Capulets and the tomb of Juliet are still 
shown. But what does it all matter? Shakespeare says that Romeo 
and Juliet lived, loved, and died; is their story less tragic because 



SHAKESPEARE'S STORIES. ix 

we are not sure that it was Verona whose streets echoed at night 
with the sword strokes of the brawling Montagues and Capulets? 
We are willing enough to accept the observation of Boswell that 
the story is perhaps traceable to that of Pyramus and Thisbe. " We 
have here," he says, " the outline of the modern narrative ; the 
repugnance of the parents on either side ; the meeting of the lovers 
at the tomb, and Pyramus, like Romeo, drawn to self-destruction by 
a false opinion of the death of his mistress." And, in dismissing 
the play of " Romeo and Juliet," we must not neglect to say that, 
in great likelihood the events of the celebrated story never happened 
at all ; but were, originally, a tradition, perhaps a myth, whose origin 
is lost in pre-historic mists. Where Shakespeare got his facts, and 
.whether the characters ever lived, are not matters of vital interest. 
The great facts are that his play has the breath of life in it, and 
that he deemed the making of plots unnecessary, the mind of his age 
having already put the seal of its approval on certain dramatic groups 
of incidents which display the elemental nature of human passion. 

In history, too, and especially in English history, Shakespeare 
saw the flash of human feeling; and into the sluggish veins of old 
chronicles, he put real blood. Here, too, he availed himself of tastes 
already formed. The English people, full of the pride of youth and 
growing achievement, loved the stories of their kings and nobles, 
saw in them the use or the abuse of that power the possession of 
which was to each loyal citizen the summit of human glory and 
responsibility. In the dearth of newspapers, libraries and schools, 
the unlettered though intelligent Englishman found in the stage 
most of the history he knew. On the rude platform that projected 
into the dirty, often muddy, pit, he saw the strutting lords of former 
days relive in a few hours the tragedy of their lives ; for his sake 
these great people, from Lear to Henry VIIL, revisited the glimpses 
of the rush lights, and consented to repeat their several histories. 
Thirteen of the thirty-seven plays were taken, with more or less 
accuracy, from Holinshed's Chronicles of England and Scotland. 
The list is as follows : " King Lear," " Cymbeline," " Macbeth," 
" King John," " Richard II.," the two parts of " Henry IV.," " Henry 
v.," the three parts of " Henry VL," " Richard III.," and " Henry 
VIIL" 

This Holinshed, of whom nothing is known except that in his 
will he describes himself as *' Raphael Hollynshed of Bromecote 
(Bramcott) in the County of Warr (wick)," published his big book 
in 1577, when Shakespeare was yet a schoolboy. It was not a great 
history. There was no effort to sift out fact" from tradition ; the 
writer took, apparently, all the material he could find on his subject; 
and if much of it was fiction, he considered it none the worse on 
that account. Some of his material was taken from the Historia 
Britonum, a work of many pleasant fictions, but of no value his- 



X SHAKESPEARE'S STORIES. 

torically; and some was taken from observations made by Roman 
writers — observations made too long before, and at too great a dis- 
tance, to be of much historical value. 

Holinshed's method may well be understood from his account of 
Macbeth, the king of Scotland whom Shakespeare made the central 
figure in the most dramatic of all dramas. It is said that only 
" a few meagre facts recorded by Marianus Scottus, Tighernac, the 
Ulster Annals, and the Saxon Chronicle embrace nearly all that 
we know about the real Macbeth ; but Holinshed presented to the 
reader a circumstantial romance composed by Hector Boece." The 
real Macbeth was not considered a tyrant north of Edinburgh, 
though in the "Anglicized region " in the south of Scotland, Malcolm 
was the favorite. " Three of the stories commonly associated with 
Macbeth — the weird sisters' predictions, Birnam Wood coming to 
Dunsinane, and his death at the hands of a foe not born of woman 
— were first narrated by Andrew Wyntoun, Prior of St. Serf, who 
finished his Cronykil of Scotland about 1424." According to this 
priest, Macbeth saw the weird sisters in a dream, and was slain by a 
nameless " knycht." Boece changed this, making the three women 
apparitions, and said that the slayer of Macbeth was Macduff, the 
Thane of Fife. Banquo and Fleance were also, no doubt, his inven- 
tions. Lady Macbeth, who played so vital a part in Shakespeare's 
drama, is mentioned but once in her own time, this mention being 
made in a charter, and for a deed of charity, thus : " Macbeth filius 
finlach . . . gruoch filia bodhe rex et regina Scotorum gave Kyr- 
kenes to the Culdees of St. Serf's monastery on Loch Leven : free 
of all obligations save the duty of praying for the donors." 
What scanty justice, then, to Macbeth and his queen by historian 
and poet ! In the great hall of Holyrood Palace, in Edinburgh, is a 
portrait of the old king — fictitious, no doubt; but if it bears any 
resemblance to the original, it is hard to believe that he deserves his 
tragic eminence. 

" Holinshed," then, is not history. But in Elizabeth's time, his- 
torical conscientiousness was but feeble : indeed, Shakespeare, the 
dramatist, who attempted only to hold the mirror up to the soul of 
man, is perhaps little less accurate in the collation of his facts than 
the historians. Holinshed seems, often, to have much the same 
motive of entertainment as the great poet who is so heavily indebted 
to him; for the touch of the marvelous, even of the mythical, en- 
livens many a page that would otherwise be dull. He speaks of this 
land of England as one " whereof Dis otherwise called Samothes, 
one of the sonnes of Japhet was the Saturne or originall beginner, 
and of him thenceforth for a long time called Samothea." And, 
"Albion, the sonne of Neptune , . . inuaded the same by force of 
armes, brought it to his subiection in the 29. yeare after his grand- 
fathers decease and finallie changed the name thereof into Albion, 



SHAKESPEARE'S STORIES. 



XI 



whereby the former denomination after Samothes did grow out of 
mind and fall unto vtter forgetfulness." And again he says, " But 
to go forward, albeit that Albion and his power were thus discom- 
fited and slaine, yet the name that he gaue unto this Hand died not, 
but still remained vnto the time of Brute (Brutus, the son of 
Aeneas), who arriuing heere in the 1116 year before Christ, and 
2850. after the creation of the world, not onlie changed it into Brit- 
aine (after it had been called Albion, by the space of about 600. 
yeares) but to declare his souereigntie over the rest of the Hands." 

After reading this we are prepared for the discussion of such 
questions as, " Whether It Be Likelie That Any Giants Were, and 
Whether They Inhabited in this He or Not." There were, of course ; 
.and Shakespeare was the greatest of them. 

The age of stories, and Shakespeare's use of them to satisfy the 
craving of man's mind for entertainment — these are our themes. 
We have seen that he took " Romeo and Juliet " from a story whose 
roots are hidden deep in antiquity, and that for his historical Eng- 
lish plays he used Holinshed's Chronicles; let us now show what 
use he made of a story that came down to him from the greatest 
English poet before his time. 

In Chaucer's " Canterbury Tales " appears a story called " The 
Tale of Gamelyn." Near the end of the sixteenth century a man 
named Thomas Lodge took this story, added to it, and made of it 
a novel which he called " Rosalynde. Euphues Golden Legacie." 
And a long, stupid piece of work it is, measured from modern stand- 
ards, although it was admired enough by the a.uthor's contemporaries. 
In the introduction " To the Gentlemen Readers " the author says 
that he is a soldier and a sailor who " giues you the fruits of his 
labors that he wrought in the Ocean, where euerie line was wet 
with a surge, & euerie humorous passion countercheckt with a storm. 
(The best sentence in the book, by the way.) // you like it, so ; and 
yet I will be yours in duetie, if you bee mine in fauour." In pur- 
suance of this plan of taking old and well-known tales instead of 
constructing new groups of events, Shakespeare took much of his 
"As You Like It " from this novel ; and it is plain where he got the 
title. 

But " Rosalynde " and "As You Like It " are two very different 
pieces of work. One was " for an age, the other for all time." 
Shakespeare fully proved his right to make grist of all that came 
to his mill, for the play breathes the breath of life, while the novel 
is a tedious narrative which is incomparably inferior to the best 
fiction of later days. 

It is possible that another play comes in between " Rosalynde " 
and " As You Like It." Furness explains certain " trivial blem- 
ishes " which appear in the play by saying that they are " outcrop- 
pings of the original play, which Shakespeare remodelled." Ulti- 



xii SHAKESPEARE'S STORIES. 

mately it matters little about this. The vital fact is that Shakespeare 
obtained certain events from sources not his own, that he added the 
enlivening characters, Jaques, the clown and Audrey, and that he 
translated all from death into life. 

This " Rosalynde," though dull in itself, is interesting enough 
when studied for the sake of comparison with "As You Like It." 
Shakespeare lets his characters walk and talk before us, and we get 
their personality from themselves; but in the novel the author, with 
his overwrought descriptions, his classical allusions, his Euphuisms, 
obtrudes between the reader and the characters. Consider this for 
example : — 

"Saladine (Oliver of the play) hauing thus set vp the Scedule, 
and hangd about his Fathers hearse many passionate Poems, that 
France might suppose him to be passing sorrowful, he clad himselfe 
and his Brothers all in black, & in such sable sutes discoursed his 
griefe; but as the Hiena when she mournes is then most guilefull, 
so Saladine vnder this shew of griefe shadowed a heart full of 
contented thoughtes : the Tyger though hee hide his clawes, will at 
last discouer his rapine : the Lions lookes are not the mappes of his 
meaning, nor a mans phisnomie is not the display of his secrets. 
Fire cannot bee hid in the straw, nor the nature of man so con- 
cealed, but at last it will haue his course : nourture and art may doo 
much, but that Natura Naturaus which by propogation is ingrafted 
in the heart, will be at last perforce predominant according to the 
olde verse. Naturam expellas furca licet, tamen vsque reciirret." 

Consider again the description of Rosalynde : — 

" The blush that gloried Luna when she kist the shepheard on 
the hills of Latmos was not tainted with such a pleasant dye, as the 
Vermilion flourisht on the siluer hue of Rosalyndes countenance; 
her eyes were like those lampes that make the welthie couert of 
the Heauens more gorgeous, sparkling sauour and disdaine; cour- 
teous and yet coye, as if in them Venus had placed all her amorets, 
and Diana all her chastitie. The tramells of her hayre, foulded in a 
call of golde, so farre surpast the burnisht glister of mettall as the 
Sunne dooth the meanest Starr in brightnesse : the tresses that 
foldes in the browes of Apollo were not halfe no rich to the sight ; 
for in her haires it seemed loue had laide her selfe in ambush, to 
intrappe the proudest eye that durst gase vppon their excellence : 
what should I neede to decipher her particular beauties, when by 
the censure of all she was the paragon of all earthly perfection." 

And how much better is the play than the novel in the scene in 
which the hero yields to love at first sight : — 

"With that Rosader (Orlando) vailed bonnet to the King, and 
lightlie lept within the lists, where noting more the companie than 
the combatant, hee cast his eye vpon the troupe of Ladies that 
glistered there like the starres of heauen, but at last Loue willing 



SHAKESPEARE'S STORIES. xiii 

to make him as amorous as he was valiant, presented him with the 
sight of Rosalynde, whose admirable beautie so inueagled the eye 
of Rosader, that forgetting himself, he stoode and fed his lookes 
on the fauour of Rosalynds face, which she perceiuing, blusht : 
which was such a doubling of her beauteous excellence, that the bash- 
full red of Aurora at the sight of vnacquainted Phaeton was not halfe 
so glorious." 

The characters are continually airing their knowledge of the 
classics. Thus does Rosalynde talk to herself : — 

"Ah Rosalynde, how the Fates haue set downe in their Synode 
to make thee vnhappie : for when Fortune hath done her worst, then 
Loue comes in to begin a new tragedie; shee seekes to lodge her 
■^onne in thine eyes, and to kindle her fires in thy bosome. Beware 
fonde girl, he is an vnruly guest to harbour; for cutting in by 
intreats he will not be thrust out by force, and her fires are fed 
with such fuell, as no water is able to quench. Seest thou not how 
Venus seekes to wrap thee in her Laborynth, wherein is pleasure 
at the entrance, but within, sorrowes, cares, and discontent ; she 
is a Syren, stop thine eares at her melodic; and a Basiliscke, shut 
thine eyes, and gaze not at her least thou perish. Thou art nowe 
placed in the Countrey content, where are heauenly thoughts, and 
meane desires : in those Lawnes where thy flockes feede Diana 
haunts : bee as her Nymphes, chaste, and enemie to Loue : for there 
is no greater honour to a Maide, than to accompt of fancie, as a 
mortall foe to their sexe. Daphne that bonny wench was not 
tourned into a Bay tree, as the Poets faine : but for her chastitie her 
fame was immortall, resembling the Lawrell that is euer greene. 
Follow thou her steps Rosalynde, and the rather, for that thou art 
an exile, and banished from the Court : whose distresse, as it is 
appeased with patience, so it woulde bee renewed with amorous 
passions. Haue minde on thy forepassed fortunes, feare the worst, 
and intangle not thy selfe with present fancies : least louing in hast 
thou repent thee at leisure. Ah but yet Rosalynde, it is Rosader that 
courts thee ; one, who as he is beautifull, so is he vertuous, and har- 
boureth in his minde as manie good qualities, as his face is shadowed 
with gracious fauours : and therefore Rosalynde stoope to Loue, least 
beeing either too coy, or too cruell, Venus waxe wrothe, and plague 
thee with the reward of disdaine." 

How different from the Rosalind of the play, who says with 
girlish impetuousness and simplicity, — 

" O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst know how 
many fathom deep I am in love ! " 

And then dolefully, — 

" But it cannot be sounded : my love hath an unknown bottom, 
like the Bay of Portugal." 

And how different too from her feminine outburst of questions 



xiv SHAKESPEARE'S STORIES. 

when she learns that Orlando is in the forest — questions to be ans 
swered all in one breath, — 

"Alas the day ! what shall I do with my doublet and hose ? 
What did he when thou sawest him? What said he? How looked 
he? Wherein went he? What makes he here? Did he ask for 
me? Where remains he? How parted he with thee? and when 
shalt thou see him again ? Answer me in one word." 

It would be easy to multiply quotations to show the difference 
in the quality of the novel and that of the play. In the one, always 
a slow narrative full of classical allusions, Latin quotations, Euphu- 
isms ; in the other always freshness, variety, spontaneity, and the 
enthusiasm of young blood. Let no discredit be cast upon the great 
poet for taking stories ready at hand ; for he took no story that 
he did not improve, and what is really Shakespeare is that which 
he did not take. 

In bidding good-bye to this brief and incomplete account of the 
origin of Shakespeare's stories, we must not neglect to note a dif- 
ference between his times and ours. In his day there were few 
schools for the common people, few books, and no magazines, no 
newspapers, no lectures. The theater, in a great measure, took the 
place of these. Nowadays people go to the playhouse to relieve 
themselves of the care of the day : then they went not only for 
relaxation and amusement, but also for instruction. Hence a dif- 
ference between our plays and theirs is manifest. We find no his- 
toric plays on our stage to match those of Shakespeare's time ; no 
" Washington " to match his " Henry V." We get from histories 
and biographies our conception of our dead heroes ; and when we 
want truly literary views of social life, we have the modern novel 
at hand. The drain business life makes upon the nervous popula- 
tion of to-day, and the consequent desire for light entertainment, 
has robbed us of the literary play, which no longer brings a suffi- 
cient money reward to make its production profitable. How for- 
tunate are we that in those ancient days there was a demand for all 
that made plays instructive and literary, as well as entertaining ! 
Finally, let us return to the thought stated in the outset — that the 
human mind demands entertainment and instruction. In Shake- 
speare's time conditions were such that there was a demand for 
plays that expressed the life of the time — its patriotism, its vigor, 
its eagerness to learn. If the great bard, in supplying this demand, 
took the history of his own land, the history of the ancients that 
was newly acquired by his contemporaries, and even world-old tales 
of love and all the brood of passions that stir the hviman heart was 
it not the part of wisdom? 



AS YOU LIKE IT. 



DRAMATIS PERSONS. 



Duke, living in banishment. 
Frederick, his brother, and usurper of 

his dominions. 
Amiens, I lords attending on the ban- 
.Taques, f ished duke. 
Le Beau, a courtier attending upon 

Frederick. 
Charles, wrestler to Frederick. 
Oliver, )^^^ ^j gj^. Ro^jand de 
JAQUES, y j3 
Orlando, i •""■'^- 

Dennis, [^^^^^"*^^°0^^"^^- 
Touchstone, a clown. 



Sir Oliver Martext, a vicar. 

iSfvTis, } shepherds. 

William, a country fellow, in love 

with Audrey. 
A person representing Hymen. 
Rosalind, daughter to the banished 

duke. 
Celia, daughter to Frederick. 
Phebe, a shepherdess. 
Audrey, a country wench. 

Lords, pages, and attendants, &c. 
Scene: Oliver'' s house : Duke Frederick's 

court; and the Forest of Arden. 



ACT I. 



Scene I. Orchard of Oliver's house. 



Enter Orlando and Adam. 

Orl. As I remember, Adam, it was iipon this fashion 
bequeathed me by will but poor a thousand crowns, and, 
as thou sayest, charged my brother, on his blessing, to 
breed me well : and there begins my sadness. My brother 
Jaques he keeps at school, and report speaks goldenly of 
his profit: for my part, he keeps me rustically at home, 
or, to speak more properly, stays me here at home unkept ; 
for call you that keeping for a gentleman of my birth, 
that differs not from the stalling of an ox? His horses 
are bred better; for, besides that they are fair with their 



2 AS YOU LIKE IT. 

feeding, they are taught their manage, and to that end 
riders dearly hired: but I, his brother, gain nothing 
under him but growth; for the which his animals on 
his dunghills are as much bound to him as I. Besides 
this nothing that he so plentifully gives me, the some- 
thing that nature gave me his countenance seems to take 
from me : he lets me feed with his hinds, bars me the 
place of a brother, and, as much as in him lies, mines 
my gentility with my education. This is it, Adam, that 
grieves me; and the spirit of my father, which I think 
is within me, begins to mutiny against this servitude : 
I will no longer endure it, though yet I know no wise 
remedy how to avoid it. ^^ 

Adam. Yonder comes my master, your brother. 

Orl. Go apart, Adam, and thou shalt hear how he will 
shake me up. 

Enter Oliver. 

Oli. Now, sir ! what make you here ? 

Orl. Nothing: I am not taught to make any thing. 

OIL What mar you then, sir? 

Orl. Marry, sir, I am helping you to mar that which 
God made, a poor unworthy brother of yours, with 
idleness. 

OIL Marry, sir, be better employed, and be naught 
awhile. 34 

Orl. Shall I keep your hogs and eat husks with them ? 
What prodigal portion have I spent, that I should come 
to such penury? 

Oli. Know you where you are, sir? 

Orl. O, sir, very well : here in your orchard. 

OH. Know you before whom, sir? 



ACT I. SCENE I. 3 

Orl. Ay, better than him I am before knows me. I 
know you are my eldest brother; and, in the gentle con- 
dition of blood, you should so know me. The courtesy 
of nations allows you my better, in that you are the first- 
born; but the same tradition takes not away my blood, 
were there twenty brothers betwixt us : I have as much 
of my father in me as you; albeit, I confess, your com- 
ing before me is nearer to his reverence. 48 
• OH. What, boy ! 

Orl. Come, come, elder brother, you are too young in 
this. 

OH. Wilt thou lay hands on me, villain? 

Orl. I am no villain; I am the youngest son of Sir 
Rowland de Boys; he was my father, and he is thrice a 
villain that says such a father begot villains. Wert thou 
not my brother, I would not take this hand from thy 
throat till this other had pulled out thy tongue for saying 
so: thou hast railed on thyself. 

Adam. Sweet masters, be patient: for your father's 
remembrance, be at accord. ^° 

OH. Let me go, I say. 

Orl. I will not, till I please : you shall hear me. My 
father charged you in his will to give me good educa- 
tion: you have trained me like a peasant, obscuring and 
hiding from me all gentleman-like qualities. The spirit 
of my father grows strong in me, and I will no longer 
endure it: therefore allow me such exercises as may 
become a gentleman, or give me the poor allottery my 
father left me by testament; with that I will go buy my 
fortunes. 70 

OH. And what wilt thou do? beg, when that is spent? 



4 AS YOU LIKE IT. 

Well, sir, get you in: I will not long be troubled with 
you; you shall have some part of your will: I pray you, 
leave me. 

Orl. I will no further offend you than becomes me for 
my good. 

on. Get you with him, you old dog. 

Adam. Is ' old dog ' my reward ? Most true, I have 
lost my teeth in your service. God be with my old mas- 
ter ! he would not have spoke such a word. ^° 

[Exeunt Orlando and Adam. 

on. Is it even so? begin you to grow upon me? I 
will physic your rankness, and yet give no thousand 
crowns neither. Holla, Dennis ! 

Enter Dennis. 

Den. Calls your worship? 

Oli. Was not Charles, the duke's wrestler, here to 
speak with me? 

Den. So please you, he is here at the door and impor- 
tunes access to you. 

Oli. Call him in. [Exit Dennis.] 'Twill be a good 
way; and to-morrow the wrestling is. 90 

Enter Charles. 

Cha. Good morrow to your worship. 

OIL Good Monsieur Charles, what's the new news 
at the new court? 

Cha. There's no news at the court, sir, but the old 
news: that is, the old duke is banished by his younger 
brother the new duke ; and three or four loving lords have 
put themselves into voluntary exile with him, whose lands 



ACT L SCENE I. 5 

and revenues enrich the new duke; therefore he gives 
them good leave to wander. 

OIL Can you tell if Rosalind, the duke's daughter, be 
banished with her father? ^°^ 

Cha. O, no; for the duke's daughter, her cousin, so 
loves her, being ever from their cradles bred together, 
that she would have followed her exile, or have died to 
stay behind her. She is at the court, and no less beloved 
of her uncle than his own daughter ; and never two ladies 
loved as they do. 

OH. Where will the old duke live? 

Cha. They say he is already in the forest of Arden, 
and a many merry men with him ; and there they live like 
the old Robin Hood of England: they say many young 
gentlemen flock to him every day, and fleet the time care- 
lessly, as they did in the golden world. "3 

OH. What, you wrestle to-morrow before the new 
duke? 

Cha. Marry, do I, sir; and I came to acquaint you 
with a matter. I am given, sir, secretly to understand 
that your younger brother Orlando hath a disposition to 
come in disguised against me to try a fall. To-morrow, 
sir, I wrestle for my credit ; and he that escapes me with- 
out some broken limb shall acquit him well. Your brother 
is but young and tender; and, for your love, I would be 
loath to foil him, as I must, for my own honor, if he 
come in: therefore, out of my love to you, I came hither 
to acquaint you withal, that either you might stay him 
from his intendment or brook such disgrace well as he 
shall run into, in that it is a thing of his own search and 
altogether against my will. ^^^ 



6 AS YOU LIKE IT. 

on. Charles, I thank thee for thy love to me, which 
thou shalt find I will most kindly requite. I had myself 
notice of my brother's purpose herein and have by under- 
hand means labored to dissuade him from it, but he is 
resolute. I'll tell thee, Charles : it is the stubbornest young 
fellow of France, full of ambition, an envious emulator 
of every man's good parts, a secret and villanous con- 
triver against me his natural brother: therefore use thy. 
discretion ; I had as lief thou didst break his neck as his 
finger. And thou wert best look to't; for if thou dost 
him any slight disgrace, or if he do not mightily grace 
himself on thee, he will practise against thee by poison, 
entrap thee by some treacherous device and never leave 
thee till he hath ta'en thy life by some indirect means or 
other; for, I assure thee, and almost with tears I speak 
it, there is not one so young and so villanous this day 
living. I speak but brotherly of him ; but should I 
anatomize him to thee as he is, I must blush and w^eep, 
and thou must look pale and wonder. ^47 

Cha. I am heartily glad I came hither to you. If 
he come to-morrow, I'll give him his payment : if ever 
he go alone again, I'll never wrestle for prize more : and 
so, God keep your worship ! 

OH. Farewell, good Charles. [Exit Charles.] Now 
will I stir this gamester: I hope I shall see an end of 
him ; for my soul, yet I know not why, hates nothing 
more than he. Yet he's gentle, never schooled and yet 
learned, full of noble device, of all sorts enchantingly 
beloved, and indeed so much in the heart of the world, 
and especially of my own people, who best know him, 
that I am altogether misprised : but it shall not be so 



ACT I. SCENE II. 7 

long ; this wrestler shall clear all : nothing remains but 
that I kindle the boy thither; which now I'll go about. 

[Exit. 

Scene 1 1. Lazvn before the Duke's palace. 
Enter Celia and Rosalind. 

Cel. I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry. 

Ros. Dear Celia, I show more mirth than I am mis- 

"tress of; and would you yet I were merrier? Unless you 

could teach me to forget a banished father, you must not 

learn me how to remember any extraordinary pleasure. 

Cel. Herein I see thou lovest me not with the full 
weight that I love thee. If my uncle, thy banished father, 
had banished thy uncle, the duke my father, so thou hadst 
been still with me, I could have taught my love to take 
thy father for mine : so wouldst thou, if the truth of thy 
love to me were so righteously tempered as mine is to 
thee. ^2 

Ros. Well, I will forget the condition of my estate, to 
rejoice in yours. 

Cel. You know my father hath no child but I, nor 
none is like to have : and, truly, when he dies, thou shalt 
be his heir, for what he hath taken away from thy father 
perforce, I will render thee again in affection ; by mine 
honor, I will ; and when I break that oath, let me turn 
monster: therefore, my sweet Rose, my dear Rose, be 
merry. ^^ 

Ros. From henceforth I will, coz, and devise sports. 
Let me see ; what think you of falling in love ? 

Cel. Marry, I prithee, do, to make sport withal: but 
love no man in good earnest; nor no further in sport 



8 AS YOU LIKE IT. 

neither than with safety of a pure blush thou mayst in 
honor come off again. 

Ros. What shall be our sport, then? 

Cel. Let us sit and mock the good housewife Fortune 
from her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be be- 
stowed equally. 31 

Ros. I would we could do so, for her benefits are 
mightily misplaced, and the bountiful blind woman doth 
most mistake in her gifts to v/omen. 

Cel. 'Tis true ; for those that she makes fair she 
scarce makes honest, and those that she makes honest 
she makes very ill-favoredly. 

Ros. Nay, now thou goest from Fortune's office to 
Nature's: Fortune reigns in gifts of the world, not in 
the lineaments of Nature. 40 

Enter Touchstone. 

Cel No? when Nature hath made a fair creature, 
may she not by Fortune fall into the fire? Though Na- 
ture hath given us wit to flout at Fortune, hath not For- 
tune sent in this fool to cut off the argument ? 

Ros. Indeed, there is Fortune too hard for Nature, 
when Fortune makes Nature's natural the cutter-off of 
Nature's wit. 

Cel. Peradventure this is not Fortune's work neither, 
but Nature's ; who perceiveth our natural wits too dull 
to reason of such goddesses and hath sent this natural for 
our whetstone; for always the dulness of the fool is the 
whetstone of the wits. How now, wit! whither wander 
you ? 

Touch. Mistress, you must come away to your father. 



ACT I. SCENE II. g 

Cel. Were you made the messenger? ss 

Touch. No, by mine honor, but I was bid to come 
for you. 

Ros. Where learned you that oath, fool? 

Touch. Of a certain knight that swore by his honor 

they were good pancakes, and swore by his honor the 

mustard was naught : now I'll stand to it, the pancakes 

were naught and the mustard was good, and yet was not 

•the knight forsworn. ^^ 

Cel. How prove you that, in the great heap of your 
knowledge ? 

Ros. Ay, marry, now unmuzzle your wisdom. 

Touch. Stand you both forth now : stroke your chins, 
and swear by your beards that I am a knave. 

Cel. By our beards, if we had them, thou art. 

Touch. By my knavery, if I had it, then I were; but 
if you swear by that that is not, you are not forsworn : 
no more was this knight, swearing by his honor, for he 
never had any ; or if he had, he had sworn it away before 
ever he saw those pancakes or that mustard. ' 74 

Cel. Prithee, who is't that thou meanest? 

Touch. One that old Frederick, your father, loves. 

Cel. My father's love is enough to honor him: 
enough ! speak no more of him ; you'll be whipped for 
taxation one of these days. 

Touch. The more pity, that fools may not speak 
wisely what wise men do foolishly. 

Cel. By my troth, thou sayest true ; for since the little 
wit that fools have was silenced, the little foolery that 
wise men have makes a great show. Here comes Mon- 
sieur Le Beau. 



lO AS YOU LIKE IT. 

Ros. With his mouth full of news. 

Cel Which he will put on us, as pigeons feed their 
young. 

Ros. Then shall we be news-crammed. ^9 

Cel, All the better; we shall be the more marketable. 

Enter Le Beau. ,• 

Bon jour, Monsieur Le Beau: what's the news? 

Le Beau. Fair princess, you have lost much good 
sport. 

Cel. Sport! of what color? 

Le Beau.' What color, madam ! how shall I answer 
you? 

Ros. As A¥it and fortune will. 

Touch. Or as the destinies decree. 

Cel. Well said : that was laid on with a trowel. 

Touch. Nay, if I keep not my rank, — ^°° 

Ros. Thou losest thy old smell. 

Le Beau. You amaze me, ladies : I would have told 
you of good wrestling, which you have lost the sight of. 

Ros. Yet tell us the manner of the wrestling. 

Le Beau. I will tell you the beginning; and, if it 
please your ladyships, you may see the end; for the best 
is yet to do ; and here, where you are, they are coming to 
perform it. 

Cel. Well, the beginning, that is dead and buried. 

Le Beau. There comes an old man and his three 
sons, — • "^ 

Cel. I could match this beginning with an old tale. 

Le Beau. Three proper young men, of excellent 
growth and presence. 



ACT I. SCENE 11. II 

Ros. With bills on their necks, ' Be it known unto all 
men by these presents.' 

LeBeaii. The eldest of the three wrestled with 
Charles, the duke's wrestler ; which Charles in a moment 
threw him and broke three of his ribs, that there is little 
hope of life in him : so he served the second, and so the 
third. Yonder they lie; the poor old man, their father, 
making such pitiful dole over them that all the beholders 
'take his part with weeping. ^^^ 

Ros. Alas ! 

Touch. But what is the sport, monsieur, that the 
ladies have lost? 

Le Beau. Why, this that I speak of. 

Touch. Thus men may grow wiser every day : it is 
the first time that ever I heard breaking of ribs was sport 
for ladies. 

Cel. Or I, I promise thee. 

Ros. But is there any else longs to see this broken 
music in his sides? is there yet another dotes upon rib- 
breaking? Shall we see this wrestling, cousin? 

Le Beau. You must, if you stay here ; for here is the 
place appointed for the wrestling", and they are ready to 
perform it. ^^7 

Cel. Yonder, sure, they are coming: let us now stay 
and see it. 

Flourish. Enter Duke Frederick, Lords, Orlando 
Charles, and Attendants. 

Duke F. Come on: since the youth will not be en- 
treated, his own peril on his forwardness. 
Ros. Is vonder the man? 



12 



AS YOU LIKE IT. 



Le BeaiL Even he, madam. 

CeL Alas, he is too young! yet he looks successfully. 

Duke F. How now, daughter and cousin! are you 
crept hither to see the wrestling? ^46 

Ros. Ay, my liege, so please you give us leave. 

Duke F, You will take little delight in it, I can tell 
you ; there is such odds in the man. In pity of the chal- 
lenger's youth I would fain dissuade him, but he will not 
be entreated. Speak to him, ladies ; see if you can move 
him. 

Cel. Call him hither, good Monsieur Le Beau. 

Duke F. Do so : Til not be by. 

Le Beau. Monsieur the challenger, the princess calls 
for you. 

Orl. I attend them with all respect and duty. 

Ros. Young man, have you challenged Charles the 
wrestler? ^S9 

Orl. No, fair princess ; he is the general challenger : 
I come but in, as others do, to try with him the strength 
of my youth. 

Cel. Young gentleman, your spirits are too bold for 
your years. You have seen cruel proof of this man's 
strength : if you saw yourself with your eyes or knew 
yourself with your judgement, the fear of your adventure 
would counsel you to a more equal enterprise. We pray 
you, for your own sake, to embrace your own safety and 
give over this attempt. - ^^9 

Ros. Do, )^oung sir; your reputation shall not there- 
fore be misprised : we will make it our suit to the duke 
that the wrestling might not go forward. 

Orl. I beseech you, punish me not with your hard 



ACT I. SCENE II. 13 

thoughts ; wherein I confess nie much guilty, to deny so 
fair and excellent ladies any thing. But let your fair eyes 
and gentle wishes go with me to my trial : wherein if I be 
foiled, there is but one shamed that was never gracious ; 
if killed, but one dead that is willing to be so : I shall do 
my friends no wrong, for I have none to lament me, the 
world no injury, for in it I have nothing; only in the 
world I fill up a place, which may be better supplied when 
**! have made it empty. ^^^ 

Ros. The little strength that I have, I would it were 
with you. 

Cel. And mine, to eke out hers. 

Ros. Fare you well : pray heaven I be deceived in 
you ? 

Cel. Your heart's desires be with you ! 

Cha. Come, where is this young gallant that is so 
desirous to lie with his mother earth? 

Orl. Ready, sir ; but his will hath in it a more modest 
working. ^^^ 

Duke F. You shall try but one fall. 

Cha. No, I warrant your grace, you shall not entreat 
him to a second, that have so mightily persuaded him 
from a first. 

Orl. You mean to mock me after; you should not 
have mocked me before : but come your ways. ^98 

Ros. Now Hercules be thy speed, young man! 

Cel. I would I were invisible, to catch the strong fel- 
low by the leg. [They wrestle. 

Ros. O excellent young man ! 

Cel. If I had a thunderbolt in mine eye, I can tell who 
should down. \_Shofif. Charles is thrown. 



14 AS YOU LIKE IT. 

Duke F. No more, no more. 

Orl. Yes, I beseech your grace : I am not yet well 
breathed. 

Duke F. How dost thou, Charles ? 

Le Beau. He cannot speak, my lord. 

Duke F. Bear him away. What is thy name, young 
man? ^" 

Orl. Orlando, my liege ; the youngest son of Sir Row- 
land de Boys. 

Duke F. I would thou hadst been son* to some man 
else: 
The world esteem'd thy father honorable, 
But I did find him still mine enemy : 
Thou shouldst have better pleased me with this deed, 
Hadst thou descended from another house. 
But fare thee well ; thou art a gallant youth : 
I would thou hadst told me of another father. ^^° 

[Exeunt Duke Frederick, train, and Le Beau. 

Cel. Were I my father, coz, would I do this? 

Orl. I am more proud to be Sir Rowland's son. 
His youngest son ; and would not change that calling. 
To be adopted heir to Frederick. 

Ros. My father loved Sir Rowland as his soul. 
And all the world was of my father's mind : 
Had I before known this young man his son, 
I should have given him tears unto entreaties. 
Ere he should thus have ventured. 

Cel. Gentle cousin, 

Let us go thank him an encourage him : 230 

My father's rough and envious disposition 
Sticks me at heart. Sir, you have well deserved : 



ACT I. SCENE 11. 15 

If you do keep your promises in love 

But justly, as you have exceeded all promise, 

Your mistress shall be happy. 

Ros. Gentleman, 

[Giving him a chain from her neck. 
Wear this for me, one out of suits with fortune, 
That could give more, but that her hand lacks means. 
Shall we go, coz? 

Gel. Ay. Fare you well, fair gentleman. 

Orl. Can I not say, I thank you ? My better parts 
Are all thrown down, and that which here stands up ^40 
Is but a quintain, a mere lifeless block. 
. Ros. He calls us back: my pride fell with my for- 
tunes ; 
I'll ask him what he would. Did you call, sir ? 
Sir, you have wrestled well and overthrown 
More than your enemies. 

Gel. Will you go, coz? 

Ros. Have with you. Fare you well. 

[Exeunt Rosalind and Gelia. 

Orl. What passion hangs these weights upon my 
tongue ? 
I cannot speak to her, yet she urged conference. 
O poor Orlando, thou art overthrown! 
Or Charles or something weaker masters thee. ^so 

Re-enter Le Beau. 

Le Beau. Good sir, I do in friendship counsel you 
To leave this place. Albeit you have deserved 
High commendation, true applause and love. 
Yet such is now the duke's condition 
That he misconstrues all that you have done. 



1 6 AS YOU LIKE IT. 

The duke is humorous : what he is indeed, 
More suits you to conceive than I to speak of. 

Orl. I thank you, sir ; and, pray you, tell me this ; 
Which of the two was daughter of the duke 
That here was at the wrestling? 260 

Le Beau. Neither his daughter, if we judge by 
manners ; 
But yet indeed the lesser is his daughter: 
The other is daughter to the banish'd duke, 
And here detain'd by her usurping uncle, 
To keep his daughter company ; whose loves 
Are dearer than the natural bond of sisters. 
But I can tell you that of late this duke 
Hath ta'en displeasure 'gainst his gentle niece, 
Grounded upon no other argument 

But that the people praise her for her virtues ^7o 

And pity her for her good father's sake; 
And, on my life, his malice 'gainst the lady 
Will suddenly break forth. Sir, fare you well: 
Hereafter, in a better world than this, 
I shall desire more love and knowledge of you. 

Orl. I rest much bounden to you: fare you well. 

[Exit Le Beau. 
Thus must I from the smoke into the smother; 
From tyrant duke unto a tyrant brother : 
But heavenly Rosalind! [Exit. 

Scene HI. A room in the palace. 

Enter Celia and Rosalind. 

Cel. Why, cousin! why, Rosalind! Cupid have 
mercy ! not a word ? 



ACT I. SCENE III. 17 

Ros. Not one to throw at a dog. 

Gel. No, thy words are too precious to be cast away 
upon curs ; throw some of them at me ; come, lame me 
with reasons. 

Ros. Then there were two cousins laid up ; when the 
one should be lamed with reasons and the other mad 
without any. 

Gel But is all this for your father? ^° 

Ros. No, some of it is for my child's father. O, how 
full of briers is this working-day world! 

Gel They are but burs, cousin, thrown upon thee in 
holiday foolery : if we walk not in the trodden paths, our 
very petticoats will catch them. 

Ros. I could shake them off my coat: these burs are 
in my heart. 

Gel Hem them away. 

Ros, I would try, if I could cry hem and have him. 

Gel Come, come, wrestle with thy affections. ^'^ 

Ros. O, they take the part of a better wrestler than 
myself ! 

Gel. O, a good wish upon you! you will try in time, 
in despite of a fall. But, turning these jests out of serv- 
ice, let us talk in good earnest: is It possible, on such a 
sudden, you should fall into so strong a liking with old 
Sir Rowland's youngest son? 

Ros. The duke my father loved his father dearly. ^^ 

Gel. Doth it therefore ensue that you should love his 
son dearly? By this kind of chase, I should hate him, 
for my father hated his father dearly: yet I hate not 
Orlando. 

Ros. No, faith, hate him not, for my sake. 



iS AS YOU LIKE IT. 

CeL Why should I not ? doth he not deserve well ? 
Ros. Let me love him for that, and do you love him 
because I do. Look, here comes the duke. 
CeL With his eyes full of anger. 

Enter Duke Frederick, zvith Lords. 

Duke F. Mistress, despatch you with your safest haste 
And get you from our court. 

Ros. Me, uncle? 

Duke F. You, cousin: 

Within these ten days if that thou be'st found 4o 

So near our public court as twenty miles. 
Thou diest for it. 

Ros. I do beseech your grace. 

Let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me : 
If with myself I hold intelligence 
Or have acquaintance with mine own desires. 
If that I do not dream or be not frantic, — 
As I do trust I am not — then, dear uncle, 
Never so much as in a thought unborn 
Did I offend your highness. 

Duke F. Thus do all traitors: 

If their purgation did consist in words, so 

They are as innocent as grace itself: 
Let it suffice thee that I trust thee not. 

Ros. Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor: 
Tell me whereon the likelihood depends. 

Duke F. Thou art thy father's daughter; there's 
enough. 

Ros. So was I when your highness took his dukedom ; 
So was I when your highness banish'd him : 



ACT I. SCENE III. ig 

Treason is not inherited, my lord; 

Or, if we did derive it from our friends. 

What's that to me ? my father was no traitor : ^° 

Then, good my liege, mistake me not so much 

To think my poverty is treacherous. 

Gel. Dear sovereign, hear me speak. 

Duke F. Ay, Celia; we stay'd her for your sake. 
Else had she with her father ranged along. 

Gel. I did not then entreat to have her stay ; 
It was your pleasure and your own remorse : 
I was too young that time to value her ; 
But now I know her : if she be a traitor, 
Why so am I ; we still have slept together, 7o 

Rose at an instant, learn'd, play'd, eat together. 
And wheresoe'er we went, like Juno's swans. 
Still we went coupled and inseparable. 

Duke F. She is too subtle for thee; and her smooth- 
ness. 
Her very silence and her patience 
Speak to the people, and they pity her. 
Thou art a fool : she robs thee of thy name ; 
And thou wilt show more bright and seem more virtuous 
When she is gone. Then open not thy lips : 
Firm and irrevocable is my doom ^° 

Which I have passed upon her; she is banish'd. 

Gel. Pronounce that sentence then on me, my liege : 
I cannot live out of her company. 

Duke F. You are a fool. You, niece, provide your- 
self : 
If you outstay the time, upon mine honor, 
And in the greatness of my word, you die. 

{Exeunt Dtike Frederick and Lords. 



20 AS YOU LIKE IT. 

Cel. O my poor Rosalind, whither wilt thou go? 
Wilt thou change fathers ? I will give thee mine. 
I charge thee, be not thou more grieved than I am. 

Ros. I have more cause. 

Cel. Thou hast not, cousin ; 9° 

Prithee, be cheerful : know'st thou not, the duke 
Hath banish'd me, his daughter? 

Ros. That he hath not. 

Cel. No, hath not? Rosalind lacks then the love 
Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one: 
Shall we be sunder'd? shall we part, sweet girl? 
No : let my father seek another heir. 
Therefore devise with me how we may fly. 
Whither to go and what to bear with us ; 
And do not seek to take your change upon you, 
To bear your griefs yourself and leave me out ; ^°° 

For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale. 
Say what thou canst, I'll go along with thee. 

Ros. Why, vv^hither shall we go? 

Cel. To seek my uncle in the forest of Arden. 

Ros. Alas, what danger will it be to us. 
Maids as we are, to travel forth so far! 
Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold. 

Cel. I'll put myself in poor and mean attire 
And with a kind of umber smirch my face ; 
The like do you: so shall v/e pass along "o 

And never stir assailants. 

Ros. Were it not better. 

Because that I am more than common tall. 
That I did suit me all points like a man? , 

A gallant curtle-axe upon my thigh, 



ACT 11. SCENE 1. 21 

A boar-spear in my hand; and — in my heart 
Lie there what hidden woman's fear there will — 
We'll have a swashing and a martial outside, 
As many other mannish cowards have 
That do outface it with their semblances. 

Gel. What shall I call thee when thou art a man ? ^^° 

Ros. I'll have no worse a name than Jove's own page ; 
And therefore look you call me Ganymede. 
But what will you be call'd ? 

Gel. Something that hath a reference to my state; 
No longer Celia, but AHena. 

Ros. But, cousin, what if vv^e assay'd to steal 
The clownish fool out of your father's court ? 
Would he not be a comfort to our travel ? 

Gel. He'll go along o'er the wide world with me; 
Leave me alone to woo him. Let's away, ^3© 

And get our jewels and our wealth together. 
Devise the fittest time and safest way 
To hide us from pursuit that will be made 
After my flight. Now go we in content 
To liberty and not to banishment. [Exeunt. 

ACT IL 

Scene I. The Forest of Arden. 

Enter Duke senior, Amiens, and tzvo or three Lords, 

like foresters. 

Duke S. Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile, 
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet 
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods 



22 AS YOU LIKE IT. 

More free from peril than the envious court? 

Here feel we but the penalty of Adam, 

The seasons' difference, as the icy fang 

And churlish chiding of the winter's wind. 

Which, when it bites and blows upon my body. 

Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say 

' This is no flattery : these are counsellors '^ 

That feelingly persuade me what I am/ 

Sweet are the uses of adversity. 

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, 

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; 

And this our life exempt from public haunt 

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks. 

Sermons in stones and good in everything. 

I would not change it. 

Ami. Happy is your grace, 

That can translate the stubbornness of forttme 
Into so quiet and so sweet a stye. 20 

Diike S. Come, shall we go and kill us venison ? 
And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools. 
Being native burghers of this desert city. 
Should in their own confines with forked heads 
Have their round haunches gored. 

First Lord, Indeed, my lord. 

The melancholy Jaques grieves at that. 
And, in that kind, swears you do more usurp 
Than doth your brother that hath banish'd you. 
To-day my lord of Amiens and myself 
Did steal behind him as he lay along 30 

Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out 
Upon the brook that brawls along this wood : 



ACT II, SCENE I. 23 

To the which place a poor sequester'd stag, 

That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt, 

Did come to languish, and indeed, my lord. 

The wretched animal heaved forth such groans 

That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat 

Almost to bursting, and the big round tears 

Coursed one another down his innocent nose 

In piteous chase ; and thus the hairy fool, 40 

Much marked of the melancholy Jaques, 

Stood on the extremest verge of the swift brook. 

Augmenting it with tears. 

Di^tke S. But what said Jaques ? 

Did he not moralize this spectacle? 

First Lord. O, yes, into a thousand similes. 
First, for his weeping into the needless stream ; 
' Poor deer,' quoth he, ' thou makest a testament 
As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more 
To that which had too much ' : then, being there alone. 
Left and abandon'd of his velvet friends, so 

' 'Tis right,' quoth he ; ' thus misery doth part 
The flux of company ' : anon a careless herd, 
Full of the pasture, jumps along by him 
And never stays to greet him : 'Ay,' quoth Jaques, 
' Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens ; 
'Tis just the fashion : wherefore do you look 
Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there ? ' 
Thus most invectively he pierceth through 
The body of the country, city, court. 
Yea, and of this our life, swearing that we ^o 

Are mere usurpers, tyrants and what's worse. 
To fright the animals and to kill them up 



24 ^^ YOU LIKE IT. 

In their assign'd and native dwelling-place. 

Duke S. And did you leave him in this contemplation ? 

Sec. Lord. We did, my lord, weeping and commenting 
Upon the sobbing deer. 

Duke S. Show me the place : 

I love to cope him in these sullen fits, 
For then he's full of matter. 

First Lord. I'll bring you to him straight. [Exeunt. 

Scene II. A room in the palace. 

Enter Duke Frederick, zvith Lords. 

Duke F. Can it be possible that no man saw. them? 
It can not be : some villains of my court 
Are of consent and sufferance in 1;his. 

First Lord. I cannot hear of any that did see her. 
The ladies, her attendants of her chamber, 
Saw her a-bed, and in the morning early 
They found the bed untreasured of their mistress. 

Sec. Lord. My lord, the roynish clown, at whom so oft 
Your grace was wont to laugh, is also missing. 
Hisperia, the princess' gentlewoman, ^° 

Confesses that she secretly o'erheard, 
Your daughter and her cousin much commend 
The parts and graces of the wrestler 
That did but lately foil the sinewy Charles ; 
And she believes, wherever they are gone. 
That youth is surely in their company. 

Duke F. Send to his brother ; fetch that gallant hither ; 
If he be absent, bring his brother to me ; 
I'll make him find him: do this suddenly, 



ACT II. SCENE III. 25 

And let not search and inquisition quail ^° 

To bring again these foolish runaways. [Exeunt. 

Scene III. Before Oliver's house. 
Enter Orlando and Adam^ meeting, 

Orl. Who's there? 

Adam. What, my young master? O my gentle mas- 
ter! 
O my sweet master! Q you memory 
Of old Sir Rowland ! why, what make you here ? 
Why are you virtuous ? why do people love you ? 
And wherefore are you gentle, strong and valiant? 
Why would you be so fond to overcome 
The bonny priser of the humorous duke ? 
Your praise is come too swiftly home before you. 
Know you not, master, to some kind of men '° 

Their graces serve them but as enemies? 
No more do yours : your virtues, gentle master. 
Are sanctified and holy traitors to you. 
O, what a world is this, when what is comely 
Envenoms him that bears it! 

Orl. Why, what's the matter? 

Adam. O unhappy youth! 

Come not within these doors ; within this roof 
The enemy of all your graces lives : 
Your brother — no, no brother ; yet the son -^ 
Yet not the son, I will not call him son ^° 

Of him I was about to call his father — • 
Hath heard your praises, and this night he means 
To burn the lodging where you use to lie 



26 ^•S' YOU LIKE IT. 

And you within it: if he fail of that. 
He will have other means to cut you off. 
I overheard him and his practices. 
This is no place ; this house is but a butchery : 
Abhor it, fear it, do not enter it. 

Orl. Why, whither, Adam, wouldst thou have me go? 

Adam. No matter whither, so you come not here, ^o 

Orl, What, wouldst thou have me go and beg my food ? 
Or with a base and boisterous sword enforce 
A thievish living on the common road? 
This I must do, or know not what to do : 
Yet this I will not do, do how I can ; 
I rather will subject me to the malice 
Of a diverted blood and bloody brother. 

Adam. But do not so. I have five hundred crowns. 
The thrifty hire I saved under your father. 
Which I did store to be my foster-nurse 40 

When service should in my old limbs lie lame 
And unregarded age in corners thrown : 
Take that, and He that doth the ravens feed. 
Yea, providently caters for the sparrow, 
Be comfort to my age ! Here is the gold ; 
All this I give you. Let me be your servant : 
Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty; 
For in my youth I never did apply 
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood. 
Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo so 

The means of weakness and debility; 
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter, 
Frosty, but kindly : let me go with you ; 
I'll do the service of a younger man 



ACT II. SCENE IV. 27 

In all your business and necessities. 

Orl. O good old man, how well in thee appears 
The constant service of the antique world, 
When service sweat for duty, not for meed ! 
Thou art not for the fashion of these times. 
Where none will sweat but for promotion, ^° 

And having that, do choke their service up 
Even with the having : it is not so with thee. 
But, poor old man, thou prunest a rotten tree, 
That cannot so much as a blossom yield 
In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry. 
But come thy ways ; we'll go along together. 
And ere we have thy youthful wages spent, 
We'll light upon some settled low content. 

Adam. Master, go on, and I will follow thee. 
To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty. 70 

From seventeen years till now almost fourscore 
Here lived I, but now live here no more. 
At seventeen years many their fortunes seek ; 
But at fourscore it is too late a week : 
Yet fortune cannot recompense me better 
Than to die well and not my master's debtor. [Exeunt. 

Scene IV. The Forest of Arden. 

Enter Rosalind for Ganymede, Celia for Aliena, 
and Touchstone. 

Ros. O Jupiter, how weary are my spirits ! 

Touch. I care not for my spirits, if my legs were not 
weary. 

7^0^. I could find in my heart to disgrace my man's 
apparel and to cry like a woman ; but I must comfort the 



28 AS YOU LIKE. IT. 

weaker vessel, as doublet and hose ought to show itself 
courageous to petticoat : therefore courage, good Aliena ! 

Cel. I pray you, bear with me ; I cannot go no further. 

Touch. For my part, I had rather bear with you than 
bear you ; yet I should bear no cross if I did bear you, for 
I think you have no money in your purse. " 

Ros. Well, this is the forest of Arden. 

Touch. Ay, now am I in Arden ; the more fool I ; when 
I was at home, I was in a better place : but travellers 
must be content. 

Ros. Ay, be so, good Touchstone 

Enter Corin and Silvius. 

Look you, who comes here ; a young man and an old in 
solemn talk. 

Cor. That is the way to make her scorn you still. 

Sil. O Corin, that thou knew'st how I do love her ! ^^ 

Cor. I partly guess ; for I have loved ere now. 

Sil. No, Corin, being old, thou canst not guess, 
Though in thy youth thou wast as true a lover 
As ever sigh'd upon a midnight pillow : 
But if thy love were ever like to mine — 
As sure I think did never man love so ■ — 
How many actions most ridiculous 
Hast thou been drawn to by thy fantasy ? 

Cor. Into a thousand that I have forgotten. 

Sil. O, thou didst then ne'er love so heartily ! 3o 

If thou remember'st not the slightest folly 
That ever love did make thee run into. 
Thou hast not loved: 
Or if thou hast not sat as I do now, 



ACT 11. SCENE IV. 29 

Wearing thy hearer in thy mistress' praise, 
Thou hast not loved : 
Or if thou hast not broke from company 
Abruptly, as my passion now makes me. 
Thou hast not loved. 

Phebe, Phebe, Phebe ! [Exit. 
Ros. Alas, poor shepherd ! searching of thy wound, 41 

1 have by hard adventure found mine own. 

Touch. And I mine. I remember, when I was in love 
I broke my sword upon a stone and bid him take that for 
coming a-night to Jane Smile; and I remember the kiss- 
ing of her batlet and the cow's dugs that her pretty chopt 
hands had milked ; and I remember the wooing of a peas- 
cod instead of her, from whom I took two cods and, giv- 
ing her them again, said with weeping tears ' Wear these 
for my sake.' We that are true lovers run into strange 
capers : but as all is mortal in nature, so is all nature in 
love mortal in folly. 52 

Ros. Thou speakest wiser than thou art ware of. 

Touch. Nay, I shall ne'er be ware of mine own wit till 
I break my shins against it. 

Ros. Jove, Jove ! this shepherd's passion 
Is much upon my fashion. 

Touch. And mine; but it grows something stale with 
me. 

Cel. I pray you, one of you question yond man 
If he for gold will give us any food: 
I faint almost to death. 

Touch. Holla, you clown! ^' 

Ros. Peace, fool : he's not thy kinsman. 

Cor. Who calls? 



3o AS YOU LIKE IT. 

Touch. Your betters, sir. 

Cor. Else are they very wretched. 

Ros. Peace, I say. Good even to you, friend. 

Cor. And to you, gentle sir, and to you all. 

Ros. I prithee, shepherd, if that love or gold 
Can in this desert place buy entertainment. 
Bring us where we may rest ourselves and feed : 
Here's a young maid with travel much oppress'd 
And faints for succor. 

Cor. Fair sir, I pity her 7° 

And wish, for her sake more than for mine own 
My fortunes were more able to relieve her ; 
But I am shepherd to another man 
And do not shear the fleeces that I graze : 
My master is of churlish disposition 
And little recks to find the way to heaven 
By doing deeds of hospitality : 
Besides, his cote, his flocks and bounds of feed 
Are now on sale, and at our sheepcote now. 
By reason of his absence, there is nothing ^° 

That you will feed on ; but what is, come see, 
And in my voice most welcome shall you be. - 

Ros. What is he that shall buy his flock and pasture? 

Cor. That young swain that you saw here but ere- 
while, 
That little cares for buying anything. 

Ros. I pray thee, if it stand with honesty, 
Buy thou the cottage, pasture and the flock. 
And thou shalt have to pay for it of us. 

Cel. And we will mend thy wages. I like this place, 
And willingly could waste my time in it. 9° 



ACT II. SCENE V. 31 

Cor, Assuredly the thing is to be sold : 
Go with me : if you like upon report 
The soil, the profit and this kind of life, 
I will your very faithful feeder be 
And buy it with your gold right suddenly. [Exeunt. 

Scene V. The forest 

Enter Amiens, Jaques, and others. 

Song. 

Ami. Under the greenwood tree 
Who loves to lie with me. 
And turn his merry note 
Unto the sweet bird's throat. 
Come hither, come hither, come hither: 
Here shall he see 
No enemy 
But winter and rough weather. 
Jaq. More, more, I prithee, more. 9 

Ami. It will make you melancholy. Monsieur Jaques. 
Jaq. I thank it. More, I prithee, more. I can suck 
melancholy out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs. More, 
I prithee, more. 

Ami. My voice is ragged : I know I cannot please you. 
Jaq. I do not desire you to please me ; I do desire you 
to sing. Come, more ; another stanzo : call you 'em stanzos ? 
Ami. What you will, Monsieur Jaques. 
Jaq. Nay, I care not for their names; they owe me 
nothing. Will you sing? 

Ami More at your request than to please myself. ^° 
Jaq. Well then, if ever I thank any man, I'll thank 



32 AS YOU LIKE IT. 

you; but that they call compliment is like the encounter 
of two dog-apes, and when a man thanks me heartily, 
methinks I have given him a penny and he renders me 
the beggarly thanks. Come, sing; and you that will not, 
hold your tongues. 

Ami. Well, I'll end the song. Sirs, cover the while; 
the duke will drink under this tree. He hath been all this 
day to look you. 

Jaq. And I have been all this day to avoid him. He is 
too disputable for my company : I think of as many mat- 
ters as he, but I give heaven thanks and make no boast of 
them. Come, warble, come. 33 

Song. 

Who doth ambition shun [All together here. 
And loves to live i' the sun. 
Seeking the food he eats 
And pleased with what he gets, 
Come hither, come hither, come hither: 
Here shall he see 

No enemy 40 

But winter and rough weather. 
Jaq. ril give you a verse to this note that I made yes- 
terday in despite of my invention. 
Ami. And I'll sing it. 
Jaq. Thus it goes : — 

If it do come to pass 
That any man turn ass, 
Leaving his wealth and ease, 
A stubborn will to please, 
Ducdame, ducdame, ducdame: so 



ACT II. SCENE VL 33 

Here shall he see 
Gross fools as he, 
An if he will come to me. 
Ami. What's that ' ducdame ' ? 

Jaq. 'Tis a Greek invocation, to call fools into a circle. 
I'll go to sleep, if I can ; if I cannot, I'll rail against all the 
firstborn of Egypt. 

Ami. And I'll go seek the duke: his banquet is pre- 
pared. [Exeunt severally. 

Scene VI. The forest. 

Enter Orlando and Adam. 

Adam. Dear master, I can go no further: O, I die for 
food ! Here lie I down, and measure out my grave. Fare- 
well, kind master. 

Orl. Why, how now, Adam ! no greater heart in thee ? 
Live a little; comfort a little; cheer thyself a little. If 
this uncouth forest yield anything savage, I will either be 
food for it or bring it for food to thee. Thy conceit is 
nearer death than thy powers. For my sake be comfort- 
able; hold death awhile at the arm's end: I will here be 
with thee presently ; and if I bring thee not something to 
eat, I will give thee leave to die : but if thou diest before I 
come, thou art a mocker of my labor. Well said! thou 
lookest cheerly, and I'll be with thee quickly. Yet thou 
liest in the bleak air : come, I will bear thee to some shel- 
ter; and thou shalt not die for lack of a dinner, if there 
live any thing in this desert. Cheerly, good Adam ! 

[Exeunt. 



34 AS YOU LIKE IT. 

Scene VII. The forest. 

A fable set out. Enter Duke senior, Amiens, and Lords 

like outlaws. 

Duke S. I think he be transform'd into a beast : 
For I can no where find him Hke a man. 

First Lord. My lord, he is but even now gone hence : 
Here was he merry, hearing of a song. 

Dtike S, If he, compact of jars, grow musical. 
We shall have shortly discord in the spheres. 
Go seek him : tell him I would speak with him. 

Enter Jaques. 

First Lord. He saves my labor by his own approach. 

Duke S. Why, how now, monsieur ! what a life is this. 
That your poor friends must woo your company? ^° 

What, you look merrily! 

Jaq. A fool, a fool ! I met a fool i' the forest, 
A motley fool ; a miserable world ! 
As I do live by food, I met a fool ; 
Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun. 
And rail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms. 
In good set terms and yet a motley fool. 
' Good morrow, fool,' quoth 1. ' No, sir,' quoth he, 
' Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune ' : 
And then he drew a dial from his poke, ^° 

And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye. 
Says very wisely, ' It is ten o'clock : 
Thus we may see,' quoth he, ' how the world wags : 
'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine. 
And after one hour more 'twill be eleven; 



ACT II. SCENE VII. 35 

And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe, 
And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot ; 
And thereby hangs a tale.' When I did hear 
The motley fool thus moral on the time. 
My lungs began to crow like chanticleer, 30 

That fools should be so deep-contemplative, 
And I did laugh sans intermission 
.An hour by his dial. O noble fool ! 
A worthy fool ! Motley's the only wear. 

Duke S. What fool is this? 

Jaq. O worthy fool ! One that hath been a courtier. 
And says, if ladies be but young and fair. 
They haA^e the gift to know it : and in his brain. 
Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit 
After a voyage, he hath strange places cramm'd 40 

With observation, the which he vents 
In mangled forms. O that I were a fool ! 
I am ambitious for a motley coat. 

DiLke S. Thou shalt have one. 

Jaq. It is my only suit; 

Provided that you weed your better judgements 
Of all opinion that grows rank in them 
That I am wise. I must have liberty 
Withal, as large a charter as the wind, 
To blow on whom I please ; for so fools have ; 
And they that are most galled with my folly, so 

They most must laugh. And why, sir, must they so ? 
The ' why ' is plain as way to parish church : 
He that a fool doth very wisely hit 
Doth very foolishly, although he smart, 
[Not to] seem senseless of the bob : if not. 



36 ~ AS YOU LIKE IT. 

The wise man's folly is anatomized 

Even by the squandering glances of the fool. 

Invest me in my motley : give me leave 

To speak my mind, and I will through and through 

Cleanse the foul body of the infected world, ^° 

If they will patiently receive my medicine. 

Ditke S. Fie on thee ! I can tell what thou wouldst do. 

Jaq. What, for a counter, would I do but good? 

Duke S. Most mischievous foul sin, in chiding sin : 
For thou thyself hast been a libertine, 
As sensual as the brutish sting itself; 
And all the embossed sores and headed evils, 
That thou with license of free foot hast caught, 
Wouldst thou disgorge into the general world. 

Jaq. Why, who cries out on pride, 7o 

That can therein tax any private party? 
Doth it not flow as hugely as the sea. 
Till that the wearer's very means do ebb? 
What woman in the city do I name. 
When that I say the city-wom.an bears 
The cost of princes on unworthy shoulders ? 
Who can come in and say that I mean her. 
When such a one as she such is her neighbor? 
Or what is he of basest function 

That says his bravery is not of my cost, • ^° 

Thinking that I mean him, but therein suits 
His folly to the mettle of my speech ? 
There then; how then? what then? Let me see wherein 
My tongue hath wrong'd him : if it do him right, 
Then he hath wrong'd himself ; if he be free. 
Why then my taxing like a wild-goose flies, 



ACT II. SCENE VII. 



37 



Unclaim'd of any man. But who comes here? 
Enter Orlando^ with his sword drawn. 

Orl. Forbear, and eat no more. 

Jaq. Why, I have eat none yet. 

Orl. Nor shalt not, till necessity be served. 

Jaq. Of what kind should this cock come of? ^o 

Duke S. Art thou thus bolden'd, man, by thy distress. 
Or else a rude despiser of good manners. 
That in civility thou seem'st so empty? 

Orl. You touch'd my vein at first : the thorny point 
Of bare distress hath ta'en from me the show 
Of smooth civility: yet am I inland bred 
And know some nurture. But forbear, I say : 
He dies that touches any of this fruit 
Till I and my affairs are answered. 

Jaq. An you will not be answered with reason, I must 
die. ^°' 

Duke S. What would you have? Your gentleness 
shall force 
More than your force move us to gentleness. 

Orl. I almost die for food; and let me have it. 

Diike S. Sit down and feed, and welcome to our table. 

Orl. Speak you so gently ? Pardon me, I pray you : 
I thought that all things had been savage here ; 
And therefore put I on the countenance 
Of stern commandment. But whate'er you are 
That in this desert inacessible, "° 

Under the shade of melancholy boughs, 
Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time ; 
If ever you have look'd on better days. 
If ever been where bells have knoU'd to church, 



38 yiS YOU LIKE IT. 

If ever sat at any good man's feast, 

If ever from your eyelids wiped a tear 

And know what 'tis to pity and be pitied, 

Let gentleness my strong enforcement be : 

In the which hope I blush, and hide my sword. 

Duke S. True is it that we have seen better days, '^° 
And have with holy bell been knoU'd to church 
And sat at good men's feasts and wiped our eyes 
Of drops that sacred pity hath engender'd : 
And therefore sit you down in gentleness 
And take upon command what help we have 
That to your wanting may be minister'd. 

07'1. Then but forbear your food a little while. 
Whiles, like a doe, I go to find my fawn 
And give it food. There is an old poor man. 
Who after me hath many a weary step '3° 

Limp'd in pure love : till he be first sufficed, 
Opprcss'd with two weak evils, age and hunger, 
I will not touch a bit. 

Duke S. Go find him out, 

And we will nothing waste till you return. 

OrL I thank ye ; and be blest for your good comfort ! 

[Exit. 

Duke S. Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy : 
This wide and universal theatre 
Presents more woeful pageants than the scene 
Wherein we play in. 

Jaq, All the world's a stage. 

And all the men and women merely players ; '4o 

They have their exits and their entrances ; 
And one man in his time plays many parts. 



ACT 11. SCENE VIL 



39 



His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, 

Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. 

And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel 

And shining morning face, creeping like snail 

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, 

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad 

Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a' soldier, 

Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, ^so 

Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel, 

Seeking the bubble reputation 

Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, 

In fair round belly with good capon lined, 

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut. 

Full of wise saws and modern instances ; 

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts 

Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon. 

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side. 

His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide ^^° 

For his shrunk shank ; and his big manly voice, 

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes 

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, 

That ends this strange eventful history, 

Is second childishness and mere oblivion, 

vSans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. 

Re-enter Orlando, zvith Adam. 

Duke S. Welcome. Set down your venerable burden, 
And let him feed. 

Orl. I thank you most for him. 

Adam, So had you need : 

I scarce can speak to thank you for myself. '7o 



40 A^ you LIKE IT. 

Duke S. Welcome ; fall to : I will not trouble you 
As yet, to question you about your fortunes. 
Give us some music ; and, good cousin, sing. 

Song. 
Ami, Blow, blow, thou winter wind. 
Thou art not so unkind 
As man's ingratitude; 
Thy tooth is not so keen. 
Because thou art not seen, 
Although thy breath be rude. 
Heigh-ho ! sing, heigh-ho ! unto the green holly : '^° 
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly: 
Then, heigh-ho, the holly! 
This life is most jolly. 

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, 
That dost not bite so nigh 

As benefits forgot: 
Though thou the waters warp. 
Thy sting is not so sharp 
As friend remember'd not. 
Heigh-ho! sing, &c. ^9° 

Duke S. If that you were the good Sir Rowland's son. 
As you have whisper'd faithfully you were 
And as mine eye doth his effigies witness 
Most truly limn'd and living in your face. 
Be truly welcome hither : I am the duke 
That loved your father : the residue of your fortune. 
Go to my cave and tell me. Good old man. 
Thou art right welcome as thy master is. 
Support him by the arm. Give me your hand. 
And let me all your fortunes understand. [Exeunt. 



ACT III. SCENE II. 4.J 

ACT III. 

Scene I. A room in the palace. 

Enter Duke Frederick, Lords, and Oliver. 

Duke F. Not see him since ? Sir, sir, that cannot be : 
But were I not the better part made mercy, 
I should not seek an absent argument 
Of my revenge, thou present. But look to it: 
Find out thy brother, wheresoe'er he is ; 
Seek him with candle ; bring him dead or living 
Within this twelvemonth, or turn thou no more 
To seek a living in our territory. 
Thy lands and all things that thou dost call thine 
Worth seizure do we seize into our hands, ^° 

Till thou canst quit thee by thy brother's mouth 
Of what we think against thee. 

OIL O that your highness knew my heart in this ! 
I never loved my brother in my life. 

Duke F. More villain thou. Well, push him out of 
doors ; 
And let my officers of such a nature 
Make an extent upon his house and lands : 
Do this expediently and turn him going. [Exeunt. 

Scene II. The forest. 
Enter Orlando, with a paper, 

Orl. Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love : 
And thou, thrice-crowned queen of night, survey 

With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above, 
Thy huntress' name that my full life doth sway. 



42 ^S YOU LIKE IT. 

O Rosalind ! these trees shall be my books 

And in their barks my thoughts I'll character ; 
That every eye which in this forest looks 
Shall see thy virtue witness'd every where. 
Run, run, Orlando ; carve on every tree 9 

The fair, the chaste and unexpressive she. [Exit. 

Enter Corin and Touchstone. 

Cor. And how like you this shepherd's life, Master 
Touchstone ? 

Touch. Truly, shepherd, in respect of itself, it is a 
good life ; but in that pespect that it is a shepherd's life, it 
is naught. In respect that it is solitary, I like it very well ; 
but in respect that it is private, it is a very vile life. Now, 
in respect it is in the fields, it pleaseth me well; but in 
respect it is not in the court, it is tedious. As it is a spare 
life, look you, it fits my humor well; but as there is no 
more plenty in it, it goes much against my stomach. Hast 
any philosophy in thee, shepherd? ^^ 

Cor. No more but that I know the more one sickens 
the worse at ease he is ; and that he that wants money, 
means and content is without three good friends ; that the 
property of rain is to wet and fire to burn ; that good pas- 
ture makes fat sheep, and that a great cause of the night 
is lack of the sun ; that he that hath learned no wit by na- 
ture nor art may complain of good breeding or comes of a 
very dull kindred. 

Touch. Such a one is a natural philosopher. Wast ever 
in court, shepherd? 31 

Cor. No, truly. 

Touch. Then thou art damned. 

Cor. Nay, I hope. 



ACT III. SCENE II. ^3 

Touch. Truly, thou art damned, like an ill-roasted tgg 
all on one side. 

Cor. For not being at court? Your reason. 

Touch. Why, if thou never wast at court, thou never 
sawest good manners ; if thou never sawest good man- 
ners, then thy manners must be wicked; and wickedness 
is sin, and sin is damnation. Thou art in a parlous state, 
shepherd. 42 

Cor. Not a whit. Touchstone : those that are good man- 
ners at the court are as ridiculous in the country as the 
behavior of the country is m^ost mockable at the court. 
You told me you salute not at the court, but you kiss 
your hands : that courtesy would be uncleanly, if courtiers 
were shepherds. 

Touch. Instance, briefly; come, instance. 

Cor. Why, we are still handling our ev/es, and their 
fells, you know, are greasy. 

Touch. Why, do not your courtier's hands sweat ? and 
is not the grease of a mutton as wholesome as the sweat 
of a man? Shallow, shallow. A better instance, I say; 
come. 55 

Cor. Besides, our hands are hard. 

Touch. Your lips will feel them the sooner. Shallow 
again. A more sounder instance, come. 

Cor. And they are often tarred over with the surgery 
of our sheep ; and would you have us kiss tar ? The court- 
ier's hands are perfumed with civet. 

Touch. Most shallow man! thou worms-meat, in re- 
spect of a good piece of flesh indeed ! Learn of the wise, 
and perpend: civet is of a baser birth than tar, the very 
uncleanly flux of a cat. Mend the instance, shepherd. ^5 

Cor, You have too courtly a wit for me : I'll rest. 



44 A^ you LIKE IT. 

Touch. Wilt thou rest damned? God help thee, shal- 
low man ! God make incision in thee ! thou art raw. 

Cor, Sir, I am a true laborer: I earn that I eat, get 
that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man's happiness, 
glad of other men's good, content with my harm, and the 
greatest of my pride is to see my ewes graze and my lambs 
suck. 73 

Touch. That is another simple sin in you, to bring the 
ewes and the rams together. If thou beest not damned 
for this, the devil himself will have no shepherds ; I can- 
not see else how thou shouldst 'scape. 

Cor. Here comes young Master Ganymede, my new 
mistress's brother. 

4^ Enter Rosalind, with a paper, reading. 

^ / 
^,Ros. From the east to western Ind, ^° 

No jewel is like Rosalind. 

Her worth, being mounted on the wind, 

Through all the world bears Rosalind. 

All the pictures fairest lined 

Are but black to Rosalind. 

Let no face be kept in mind 

But the fair of Rosalind. 
Touch. I'll rhyme you so eight years together, dinners 
and suppers and sleeping-hours excepted: it is the right 
butter-women's rank to market. 9° 

Ros. Out, fool ! 
Touch. For a taste: 

If a hart do lack a hind. 

Let him seek out Rosalind. 

If the cat will after kind. 



ACT III. SCENE II. 45 

So be sure will Rosalind. 
Winter garments must be lined, 
So must slender Rosalind. 
They that reap must sheaf and bind ; 
Then to cart with Rosalind. ^°° 

Sweetest nut hath sourest rind, 
Such a nut is Rosalind. 
„ He that sweetest rose will find 

Must find love's prick and Rosalind. 
This is the very false gallop of verses : why do you infect 
yourself with them? 

Ros. Peace, you dull fool ! I found them on a tree. 
Touch. Truly, the tree yields bad fruit. 
Ros. ril graff it with you, and then I shall graff it with 
a medlar : then it will be the earliest fruit i' the country ; 
for you'll be rotten ere you be half ripe, and that's the 
right virtue of the medlar. "^ 

Touch. You have said; but whether wisely or no, let 
the forest judge. 

Enter Celia^ with a writing. 
Ros. Peace ! 
Here comes my sister, reading: stand aside. 
Cel. [Reads] 

Why should this a desert be? 
For it is unpeopled? No; 
Tongues I'll hang on every tree, 

That shall civil sayings show: ^^° 

Some, how brief the life of man 

Runs his erring pilgrimage. 
That the stretching of a span 
Buckles in his sum of age ; 



^.6 AS YOU LIKE IT. 

Some, of violated vows 

'Twixt the souls of friend and friend : 
But upon the fairest boughs, 

Or at every sentence end. 
Will I Rosalinda write, 

Teaching all that read to know ^^o 

The quintessence of every sprite 

Heaven would in little show. 
Therefore Heaven Nature charged 

That one body should be fill'd 
With all graces wide-enlarged: 

Nature presently distill'd 
Helen's cheek, but not her heart, 

Cleopatra's majesty, 
Atalanta's better part. 

Sad Lucretia's modesty. ^40 

Thus Rosalind of many parts 

By heavenly synod was devised, 
Of many faces, eyes and hearts. 
To have the touches dearest prized. 
Heaven would that she these gifts should have. 
And I to live and die her slave. 
Ros. O most gentle pulpiter! what tedious homily of 
love have you wearied your parishioners withal, and never 
cried, ' Have patience, good people ' ! 

Cel. How now ! back, friends ! Shepherd, go off a 
little. Go with him, sirrah. ^si 

Touch. Com.e, shepherd, let us make an honorable re- 
treat; though not v/ith bag and baggage, yet with scrip 
and scrippage. 

[Exeunt Corin and Touchstone, 



ACT III. SCENE II. 47 

Cel. Didst thou hear these verses ? 

Ros. O, yes, I heard them all, and more too ; for some 
of them had in them m.ore feet than the verses would bear. 

Cel. That's no matter: the feet might bear the verses. 

Ros. Ay, but the feet were lame and could not bear 

themselves without the verse and therefore stood lamely 

in the verse. ^^^ 

' Cel. But didst thou hear without wondering how thy 

name should be hanged and carved upon these trees ? 

Ros. I was seven of the nine days out of the wonder 
before you came ; for look here what I found on a palm- 
tree. I was never so be-rhymed since Pythagoras' time, 
that I was an Irish rat, which I can hardly remember. 

Cel. Trow you who hath done this ? 

Ros. Is it a man? 

Cel. And a chain, that you once wore, about his neck. 
Change you color? ^71 

Ros. I prithee, who? 

Cel. O Lord, Lord ! It is a hard matter for friends to 
meet ; but mountains may be removed with earthquakes 
and so encounter. 

Ros. Nay, but who is it? 

Cel. Is it possible ? 

Ros. Nay, I prithee now with most petitionary vehem- 
ence, tell me who it is. 

Cel. O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful 
wonderful ! and yet again wonderful, and after that, out of 
all hooping! ^^^ 

Ros. Good my complexion ! dost thou think, though I 
am caparisoned like a man, I have a doublet and hose in 
my disposition ? One inch of delay more is a South-sea of , 



48 



AS YOU LIKE IT. 



discovery; I prithee, tell me who is it quickly, and speak 
apace. I would thou couldst stammer, that thou mightst 
pour this concealed man out of thy mouth, as wine comes 
out of a narrow-mouthed bottle, either too much at once, 
or none at all. I prithee, take the cork out of thy mouth 
that I may drink thy tidings. Is he of God's making? 
What manner of man? Is his head worth a hat, or his 
chin worth a beard? ^^^ 

Cel. Nay, he hath but a little beard. 

Ros. Why, God will send more, if the man will be 
thankful: let me stay the growth of his beard, if thou 
delay me not the knowledge of his chin. 

Cel. It is young Orlando that tripped up the wrestler's 
heels and your heart both in an instant. 

Ros. Nay, but the devil take mocking : speak, sad brow 
and true maid. ^°^ 

CeL I' faith, coz, 'tis he. 

Ros. Orlando ? 

Cel. Orlando. 

Ros. Alas the day! what shall I do with my doublet 
and hose? What did he when thou sawest him? What 
said he? How looked he? Wherein went he? What 
makes he here ? Did he ask for me ? Where remains he ? 
How parted he with thee? and when shalt thou see him 
again? Answer me in one word. ^^° 

CeL You must borrow me Gargantua's mouth first: 
'tis a word too great for any mouth of this age's size. To 
say ay and no to these particulars is more than to answer 
in a catechism. 

Ros. But doth he know that I am in this forest and in 
man's apparel ? Looks he as freshly as he did the day he 
wrestled ? 



ACT III. SCENE 11. 49 

Gel. It is as easy to count atomies as to resolve the pro- 
positions of a lover; but take a taste of my finding him, 
and relish it with good observance. I found him under a 
tree, like a dropped acorn. ^^^ 

Ros. It may v^ell be called Jove's tree, v^hen it drops 
forth such fruit. 

Cel. Give me audience, good madam. 

Ros. Proceed. 

Cel. There lay he, stretched along, like a v^ounded 
knight. 

Ros. Though it be pity to see such a sight, it well be- 
comes the ground. 

Cel. Cry 'holla' to thy tongue, I prithee; it curvets 
unseasonably. He was furnished like a hunter. ^^i 

Ros. O, ominous ! he comes to kill my heart. 

Cel. I would sing my song without a burden: thou 
bringest me out of tune. 

Ros. Do you not know I am a woman? when I think, 
I must speak. Sweet, say on. 

Cel. You bring me out. Soft! comes he not here? 

Enter Orlando and Jaques. 

Ros. 'Tis he: slink by, and note him. 

Jaq. I thank you for your company ; but, good faith, I 
had as lief have been myself alone. ^4o 

Orl. And so had I ; but yet, for fashion's sake, I 
thank you too for your society. 

Jaq. God be wi' you : let's meet as little as we can. 

Orl. I do desire we may be better strangers. 

Jaq. I pray you, mar no more trees with writing love- 
songs in their barks. 

4 



50 



AS YOU LIKE IT. 



Orl. I pray you, mar no moe of my verses with read- 
ing them ill-favoredly. 

Jaq. Rosalind is your love's name? 

Orl. Yes, just. ^so 

Jaq. I do not like her name. 

Orl. There was no thought of pleasing you when she 
was christened. 

Jaq. What stature is she of? 

Orl. Just as high as my heart. 

Jaq. You are full of pretty answers. Have you not 
been acquainted vv^ith goldsmith's wives, and conned them 
out of rings? 

Orl. Not so; but I answer you right painted cloth, 
from whence you have studied your questions. ^^° 

Jaq. You have a nimble wit: I think 'twas made of 
Atalanta's heels. Will you sit down with me ? and we two 
will rail against our mistress the world and all our misery. 

Orl. I will chide no breather in the world but myself, 
against whom I know most faults. 

Jaq. The worst fault you have is to be in love. 

Orl. 'Tis a fault I will not change for your best vir- 
tue. I am weary of you. 

Jaq. By my troth, I was seeking for a fool when I 
found you. 270 

Orl. He is drowned in the brook : look but in, and you 
shall see him. 

Jaq. There I shall see mine own figure. 

Orl. Which I take to be either a fool or a cipher. 

Jaq. I'll tarry no longer with you : farewell, good Sig- 
nior Love. 

Orl. I am glad of your departure: adieu, good Mon- 
sieur Melancholy. ][E.rit Jaques, 



ACT III. SCENE II. 51 

Ros. [Aside to Celia] I will speak to him like a saucy 
lackey and under that habit play the knave with him. Do 
you hear, forester? ^^^ 

OrL Very well : what would you ? 

Ros. I pray you, what is 't o' clock ? 

OrL You should ask me what time o' day : there 's no 
clock in the forest. 

. Ros. Then there is no true lover in the forest ; else 
sighing every minute and groaning every hour would de- 
tect the lazy foot of Time as well as a clock. 

OrL And why not the swift foot of Time ? had not that 
been as proper? ^90 

Ros. By no means, sir: Time travels in divers paces 
with divers persons. I'll tell you who Time ambles 
withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops withal 
and who he stands still withal. 

OrL I prithee, who doth he trot withal? 

Ros. Marry, he trots hard with a young maid between 
the contract of her marriage and the day it is solem- 
nized : if the interim be but a se'nnight. Time's pace is so 
hard that it seems the length of seven year. 

OrL Who ambles Time withal? 300 

Ros. With a priest that lacks Latin and a rich man 
that hath not the gout, for the one sleeps easily because 
he cannot study and the other lives merrily because he 
feels no pain; the one lacking the burden of lean and 
wasteful learning, the other knowing no burden of heavy 
tedious penury ; these Time ambles withal. 

OrL Who doth he gallop withal? 

Ros. With a thief to the gallows, for though he go as 
softly as foot can fall, he thinks himself too soon there. 



52 



AS YOU LIKE IT. 



Orl. Who stays it still withal ? 310 

Ros. With lawyers in the vacation : for they sleep be- 
tween term and term and then they perceive not how Time 
moves. 

OrL Where dwell you, pretty youth? 

Ros. With this shepherdess, my sister ; here in the 
skirts of the forest, like fringe upon a petticoat. 

OrL Are you native of this place? 

Ros. As the cony that you see dwell where she is 
kindled. 

Orl. Your accent is something finer than you could 
purchase in so removed a dwelling. 321 

Ros. I have been told so of many: but indeed an old 
religious uncle of mine taught me to speak, who was in his 
youth an inland man : one that knew courtship too well, 
for there he fell in love. I have heard him read many 
lectures against it, and I thank God I am not a woman, to 
be touched with so many giddy offences as he hath gen- 
erally taxed their whole sex withal. 

Orl. Can you remember any of the principal evils that 
he laid to the charge of women? 330 

Ros. There were none principal : they were all like one 
another as half-pence are, every one fault seeming mon- 
strous till his fellow-fault came to match it. 

Orl. I prithee, recount some of them. 

Ros. No, I will not cast away my physic but on those 
that are sick. There is a man haunts the forest, that 
abuses our young plants with carving * Rosalind ' on their 
barks ; hangs odes upon hawthorns and elegies on 
brambles, all, forsooth, deifying the name of Rosalind : if 
I could meet that fancymonger, I would give him some 



ACT III. SCENE 11. 53 

good counsel, for he seems to have the quotidian of love 
upon him. ^42 

Orl. I am he that is so love-shaked : I pray you, tell me 
your remedy. 

Ros. There is none of my uncle's marks upon you : he 
taught me how to know a man in love ; in which cage of 
rushes I am sure you are not prisoner. 

Orl. What were his marks? 

Ros. A lean cheek, which you have not ; a blue eye and 
sunken, which you have not; an unquestionable spirit, 
which you have not; a beard neglected, which you have 
not ; but I pardon you for that, for simply your having in 
beard is a younger brother's revenue : then your hose 
should be ungartered, your bonnet unhanded, your sleeve 
unbuttoned, your shoe untied and every thing about you 
demonstrating a careless desolation ; but you are no such 
man; you are rather point-device in your accoutrements 
as loving yourself than seeming the lover of any other. 

Orl. Fair youth, I would I could make thee believe I 
love. 360 

Ros. Me believe it! you may as soon make her that 
you love believe it: which, I warrant, she is apter to do 
than to confess she does : that is one of the points in the 
which women still give the lie to their consciences. But, 
in good sooth, are you he that hangs the verses on the 
trees, wherein Rosalind is so admired ? 

Orl. I swear to thee, youth, by the white hand of 
Rosalind, I am that he, that unfortunate he. 

Ros. But are you so much in love as your rhymes 
speak ? 370 

Orl. Neither rliyme nor reason can express how much. 



54 AS YOU LIKE IT. 

Ros. Love is merely a madness, and, I tell you, de- 
serves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do: 
and the reason why they are not so punished and cured is, 
that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love 
too. Yet I profess curing it by counsel. 

OrL Did you ever cure any so? 37i 

Ros. Yes, one, and in this manner. He was to imagine 
me his love, his mistress ; and I set him every day to woo 
me: at which time would I, being but a moonish youth, 
grieve, be effeminate, changeable, longing and liking, 
proud, fantastical, apish, shallow, inconstant, full of tears, 
full of smiles, for every passion some thing and for no 
passion truly any thing, as boys and women are for the 
most part cattle of this color; would now like him, now 
loathe him ; then entertain him, then forswear him ; now 
weep for him, then spit at him; that I drave my suitor 
from his mad humor of love to a living humor of mad- 
ness ; which was, to forswear the full stream of the world 
and to live in a nook merely monastic. And thus I cured 
him ; and this way will I take upon me to wash your liver 
as clean as a sound sheep's heart, tlmt there shall not be 
one spot of love in 't. 393 

OrL I would not be cured, youth. 

Ros. I would cure you, if you would but call me Ros- 
alind and come every day to my cote and woo me. 

OrL Now, by the faith of my love, I will : tell me where 
it is. 

Ros. Go with me to it and I'll show it you : and by the 
way you shall tell me where in the forest you live. Will 
you go? 401 

OrL With all my heart, good youth. 



ACT III. SCENE III. 55 

Ros. Nay, you must call me Rosalind. Come, sister, 
will you go? [Exeunt, 

Scene III. The forest. 
Enter Touchstone and Audrey ; Jaques behind. 

Touch. Come apace, good Audrey: I will fetch up 
your goats, Audrey. And how, Audrey? am I the man 
yet ? doth my simple feature content you ? 

Aud. Your features ! Lord warrant us ! what features ? 

Touch. I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most 
capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths. 

Jaq. [Aside] O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than 
Jove in a thatched house ! ^ 

Touch. When a man's verses cannot be understood, 
nor a man's good wit seconded with the forward child 
Understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great 
reckoning in a little room. Truly, I would the gods had 
made thee poetical. 

Aiid. I do not know what ' poetical ' is : is it honest in 
deed and word ? is it a true thing ? 

Touch. No, truly; for the truest poetry is the most 
feigning; and lovers are given to poetry, and what they 
swear in poetry may be said as lovers they do feign. 

Aud. Do you wish then that the gods had made me 
poetical ? ^° 

Touch, I do, truly ; for thou swearest to me thou art 
honest : now, if thou wert a poet, I might have some hope 
thou didst feign. 

Afid. Would you not have me honest? 

Touch. No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favored ; for 



56 AS YOU LIKE IT. 

honesty coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to 
sugar. 

Jaq. [Aside] A material fool! 

And, Well, I am not fair; and therefore I pray the 
gods make me honest. 3° 

Touch. Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul 
'slut were to put good meat into an unclean dish. 

And. I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am 
foul. 

Touch. Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness ! slut- 
tishness may come hereafter. But be it as it may be, I will 
marry thee, and to that end I have been with Sir Oliver 
Martext, the vicar of the next village, who hath promised 
to meet me in this place of the forest and to couple us. 

Jaq. [Aside] I would fain see this meeting. 4o 

Aiid. Well, the gods give us joy! 

Touch. Amen. A man may, if he were of a fearful 
heart, stagger in this attempt ; for here we have no temple 
but the wood, no assembly but horn-beasts. But what 
though ? Courage ! As horns are odious, they are neces- 
sary. It is said, 'many a man knows no end of his 
goods ; ' right ; many a man has good horns, and knows 
no end of them. Well, that is the dowry of his wife ; 'tis 
none of his own getting. Horns? Even so. Poor men 
alone ? No, no ; the noblest deer hath them as huge as the 
rascal. Is the single man therefore blessed? No: as a 
walled town is more worthier than a village, so is the 
forehead of a married man more honorable than the bare 
brow of a bachelor ; and by how much defence is better 
than no skill, by so much is a horn more precious than to 
want. Here comes Sir Oliver. 56 



ACT III. SCENE III. 57 



Enter Sir Oliver Martext. 

Sir Oliver Martext, you are well met : will you dispatch us 
here under this tree, or shall we go with you to your 
chapel ? 

Sir OH. Is there none here to give the woman? ^° 

Touch. I will not take her on gift of any man. 

Sir OH. Truly, she must be given, or the marriage is 
not lawful. 

Jaq. [Advancing] Proceed, proceed: I'll give her. 

Touch. Good even, good Master What-ye-call't : how 
do you, sir? You are very well met: God 'ild you for 
your last company : I am very glad to see you : even a toy 
in hand here, sir: nay, pray be covered. 

Jaq. Will you be married, motley? ^9 

Touch. As the ox hath his bow, sir, the horse his curb 
and the falcon her bells, so man hath his desires ; and as 
pigeons bill, so wedlock would be nibbling. 

Jaq. And will you, being a man of your breeding, be 
married under a bush like a beggar? Get you to church, 
and have a good priest that can tell you what marriage is : 
this fellow will but join you together as they join wains- 
cot; then one of you will prove a shrunk panel and, like 
green timber, warp, warp. 78 

Touch. [Aside] I am not in the mind but I were 
better to be married of him than of another : for he is not 
like to marry me well ; and not being well married, it will 
be a good excuse for me hereafter to leave my wife. 

Jaq. Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee. 

Touch. Come, sweet Audrey: 
Farewell, good Master Oliver : not, — 



58 AS YOU LIKE IT. 

O sweet Oliver, 
O brave Oliver, 
Leave me not behind thee: 
but, — 

Wind away, 

Begone, I say, 90 

I will not to wedding with thee. 

lExetmt Jaqiies, Touchstone and Audrey, 

Sir on. 'Tis no matter: ne'er a fantastical knave of 

them all shall flout me out of my calling. [Exit, 

Scene IV. The forest. 
Enter Rosalind and Celia. 

Ros. Never talk to me; I will weep. 

Cel. Do, I prithee; but yet have the grace to consider 
that tears do not become a man. 

Ros. But have I not cause to weep ? 

CeL As good cause as one would desire; therefore 
weep. 

Ros. His very hair is of the dissembling color. 

Cel. Something browner than Judas's : marry, his 
kisses are Judas's own children. 

Ros. V faith, his hair is of a good color. '° 

Cel. An excellent color: your chestnut was ever the 
only color. 

Ros, And his kissing is as full of sanctity as the touch 
of holy bread. 

Cel. He hath bought a pair of cast lips o. Diana: a 
nun of winter's sisterhood kisses not more religiously : the 
very ice of chastity is in them. 



ACT III. SCENE IV. 59 

* 

^os. But why did he swear he would come this morn- 
ing, and comes not? 

Cel, Nay, certainly, there is no truth in him. ^° 

Ros. Do you think so ? 

Cel. Yes ; I think he is not a pick-purse nor a horse- 
stealer, but for his verity in love, I do think him as 
concave as a covered goblet or a worm-eaten nut. 

Ros. Not true in love? 

Cel. Yes, when he is in ; but I think he is not in, 

Ros. You have heard him swear downright he was. 

Cel. ' Was ' is not ' is ' : besides, the oath of a lover is 
no stronger than the word of a tapster ; they are both the 
confirmer of false reckonings. He attends here in the for- 
est on the duke your father. 31 

Ros. I met the duke yesterday and had much question 
with him : he asked me of what parentage I was ; I told 
him, of as good as he ; so he laughed and let me go. But 
what talk we of fathers, when there is such a man as 
Orlando ? 

Cel. O, that's a brave man! he writes brave verses, 
speaks brave words, swears brave oaths and breaks them 
bravely, quite traverse, athwart the heart of his lover; 
as a puisny tilter, that spurs his horse but on one side, 
breaks his staff like a noble goose: but all's brave that 
youth mounts and folly guides. Who comes here? 42 

Enter Corin. 

Cor. Mistress and master, you have oft enquired 
After the shepherd that complain'd of love. 
Who you saw sitting by me on the turf, 
Praising the proud disdainful shepherdess 



6o AS YOU LIKE IT. 

That was his mistress. 

Cel. Well, and what of him ? 

Cor. If you will see a pageant truly play'd, 
Between the pale complexion of true love 
And the red glow of scorn and proud disdain, so 

Go hence a little and I shall conduct you, 
If you will mark it. 

Ros. O, come, let us remove : 

llie sight of lovers feedeth those in love. 
Bring us to this sight, and you shall say 
ril prove a busy actor in their play. [Exeunt. 

Scene V. Another part of the forest. 

Enter Silvius and Phebe. 

Sil. Sweet Phebe, do not scorn me ; do not, Phebe ; 
Say that you love me not, but say not so 
In bitterness. The common executioner. 
Whose heart the accustom'd sight of death makes hard, 
Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck 
But first begs pardon : will you sterner be 
Than he that dies and lives by bloody drops ? 

Enter Rosalind^ Celia^ and Corin^ behind. 

Phe. I would not be thy executioner : 
I fly thee, for I would not injure thee. 
Thou tell'st me there is murder in mine eye : ^° 

'Tis pretty, sure, and very probable. 
That eyes, that are the frail'st and softest things, 
Who shut their coward gates on atomies. 
Should be call'd tyrants, butchers, murderers ! 



ACT III. SCENE V. 6i 

Now I do frown on thee with all my heart ; 

And if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee : 

Now counterfeit to swoon ; why now fall down ; 

Or if thou canst not, O, for shame, for shame. 

Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers ! 

Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee : ^° 

Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains 

Some scar of it; lean but upon a rush, 

The cicatrice and capable impressure 

Thy palm some moment keeps ; but now mine eyes, 

Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not. 

Nor, I am sure, there is no force in eyes 

That can do hurt. 

Sil. O dear Phebe, 

If ever, — as that ever may be near, — 
You meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy, 
Then shall you know the wounds invisible , -30 

That love's keen arrows make. 

Phe. But till that time 

Come not thou near me : and when that time comes, 
Afflict me with thy mocks, pity me not; 
As till that time I shall not pity thee. 

Ros. And why, I pray you? Who might be your 
mother, 
That you insult, exult, and all at once. 
Over the wretched ? What though you have no beauty, — 
As, by my faith, I see no more in you 
Than without candle may go dark to bed — 
Must you be therefore proud and pitiless? 40 

Why, what means this? Why do you look on me? 
I see no more in you than in the ordinary 



62 AS YOU LIKE IT. 

Of nature's sale-work. 'Od's my little life, 

I think she means to tangle my eyes too ! 

No, faith, proud mistress, hope not after it : 

'Tis not your inky brows, your black silk hair. 

Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream. 

That can entame my spirits to your worship. 

You foolish shepherd, wherefore do you follow her. 

Like foggy south puffing with wind and rain ? so 

You are a thousand times a properer man 

Than she a woman : 'tis such fools as you 

That makes the world full of ill-f avor'd children : 

'Tis not her glass, but you, that flatters her ; 

And out of you she sees herself more proper 

Than any of her lineaments can show her. 

But, mistress, know yourself : down on your knees, 

And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love : 

For I must tell you friendly in your ear. 

Sell when you can : you are not for all markets : ^° 

Cry the man mercy; love him; take his offer: 

Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer. 

So take her to thee, shepherd : fare you well. 

Phe. Sweet youth, I pray you, chide a year together : 
I had rather hear you chide than this man woo. 

Ros. He's fallen in love with your foulness and she'll 
fall in love with my anger. If it be so, as fast as she an- 
swers thee with frowning looks, I'll sauce her with bitter 
words. Why look you so upon me? 

Phe. For no ill will I bear you. ^o 

Ros. I pray you, do not fall in love with me. 
For I am falser than vows made in wine : 
Besides, I like you not. If you will know my house, 



ACT III. SCENE V. 63 

'Tis at the tuft of olives here hard by. 

Will you go, sister? Shepherd, ply her hard. 

Come, sister. Shepherdess, look on him better, 

And be not proud : though all the world could see, 

None could be so abused in sight as he. 

Come, to our flock. [Exeimt Rosalind, Celia and Corin. 

Phe. Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might, ^° 
' Who ever loved that loved not at first sight ? ' 

Sil. vSweet Phebe, — • 

Phe. Ha, what say'st thou, Silvius? 

Sil. Sweet Phebe, pity me. 

Phe. Why, I am sorry for thee, gentle Silvius. 

Sil. Wherever sorrow is, relief would be : 
If you do sorrow at my grief in love. 
By giving love your sorrow and my grief 
Were both extermined. 

Phe. Thou hast my love: is not that neighborly? 

Sih I would have you. 

Phe. Why, that were covetousness. 9° 

Silvius, the time was that I hated thee. 
And yet it is not that I bear thee love ; 
But since that thou canst talk of love so well. 
Thy company, which erst was irksome to me, 
I will endure, and I'll employ thee too : 
But do not look for further recompense 
Than thine own gladness that thou art employ'd. 

Sil. So holy and so perfect is my love. 
And I in such a poverty of grace, 

That I shall think it a most plenteous crop '°° 

To glean the broken ears after the man 
That the main harvest reaps : loose now and then 



64 



AS YOU LIKE IT. 



A scattered smile, and that I'll Uyq upon. 

Phe. Know'st thou the youth that spoke to nie ere- 
while ? 

SiL Not very well, but I have met him oft ; 
And he hath bought the cottage and the bounds 
That the old carlot once was master of. 

Phe. Think not I love him, though I ask for him ; 
'Tis but a peevish boy ; yet he talks well ; 
But what care I for words ? yet words do well "° 

When he that speaks them pleases those that hear. 
It is a pretty youth : not very pretty : 
But, sure, he's proud, and yet his pride becomes him : 
He '11 make a proper man : the best thing in him 
Is his complexion ; and faster than his tongue 
Did make offence his eye did heal it up. 
He is not very tall ; yet for his years he 's tall : 
His leg is but so so ; and yet 'tis well : 
There was a pretty redness in his lip, 
A little riper and more lusty red ^^° 

Than that mix'd in his cheek ; 'twas just the difference 
Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask. 
There be some women, Silvius, had they mark'd him 
In parcels as I did, would have gone near 
To fall in love with him : but, for my part, 
I love him^ not nor hate him not ; and yet 
I have more cause to hate him than to love him : 
For what had he to do to chide at me ? 
He said mine eyes were black and my- hair black ; 
And, now I am remember'd, scorn'd at me : 
I marvel why I answer'd not again : 
But that 's all one ; omittance is no quittance. 



130 



ACT IV. SCENE I. 65 

I'll write to him a very taunting letter, 
And thou shalt bear it : wilt thou, Silvius ? 

Sit. Phebe, with all my heart. 

Pli^^ I'll write it straight; 

The matter 's in my head and in my heart : 
I will be bitter with him and passing short. 
Go with me, Silvius. ^Exeunt. 

ACT IV. 

Scene I. The forest. 

Enter Rosalind, Celia, and Jaques. 

Jaq. I prithee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted 
with thee. 

Ros. They say you are a melancholy fellow. 

Jaq. I am so ; I do love it better than laughing. 

Ros. Those that are in extremity of either are abom- 
inable fellows and betray themselves to every modern cen- 
sure worse than drunkards. 

Jaq. Why, 'tis good to be sad and say nothing. 

Ros. Why then, 'tis good to be a post. ^ 

Jaq. I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is 
emulation; nor the musician's, which is fantastical; nor 
the courtier's, which is proud ; nor the soldier's, which is 
ambitious; nor the lawyer's, which is politic; nor the 
lady's, which is nice ; nor the lover's, which is all these : 
but it is a melancholy of my own, compounded of many 
simples, extracted from many objects, and indeed the 
sundry contemplation of my travels, in which my often 
rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness. 

Ros. A traveller ! By my faith, you have great reason 

5 



66 AS YOU LIKE IT. 

to be sad: I fear you have sold your own lands to see 
other men's ; then, to have seen much and to have nothing, 
is to have rich eyes and poor hands. ^^ 

Jaq. Yes, I have gained my experience. 

Ros. And your experience makes you sad : I had rather 
have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me 
sad ; and to travel for it too ! 

Enter Orlando. 

Orl. Good day and happiness, dear Rosalind ! 

Jaq. Nay, then God be wi' you, an you talk in blank 
verse. [Exit. 

Ros. Farewell, Monsieur Traveller : look you lisp and 
wear strange suits, disable all the benefits of your own 
country, be out of love with your nativity and almost chide 
God for making you that countenance you are, or I will 
scarce think you have swam in a gondola. Why, how 
now, Orlando ! where have you been all this while ? You 
a lover ! An you serve me such another trick, never come 
in my sight more. 37 

Orl. My fair Rosalind, I come within an hour of my 
promise. 

Ros. Break an hour's promise in love ! He that will 
divide a minute into a thousand parts and break but a part 
of the thousandth part of a minute in the affairs of love, 
it may be said of him that Cupid hath clapped him o' the 
shoulder, but I'll warrant him heart-whole. 44 

Orl. Pardon me, dear Rosalind. 

Ros. Nay, an you be so tardy, come no more in my 
sight : I had as lief be wooed of a snail. 

Orl. Of a snail? 



ACT IV. SCENE 1. 67 

Ros. Ay, of a snail ; for though he comes slowly, he 
carries his house on his head; a better jointure, I think, 
than you make a woman: besides he brings his destiny 
with him. ^^ 

Orl What's that? 

Ros. Why, horns, which such as you are fain to be be- 
holding to your wives for : but he comes armed in his for- 
tune and prevents the slander of his wife. 

Orl Virtue is no horn-maker ; and my Rosalind is vir- 
tuous. 

Ros. And I am your Rosalind. 

Gel. It pleases him to call you so ; but he hath a Rosa- 
lind of a better leer than you. ^' 

Ros. Come, woo me, woo me, for now I am in a holi- 
day humor and like enough to consent. What would you 
say to me now, an I were your very very Rosalind ? 

Orl. I would kiss before I spoke. 

Ros. Nay, you were better speak first, and when you 
were gravelled for lack of matter, you might take occa- 
sion to kiss. Very good orators, when they are out, they 
will spit ; and for lovers lacking — God warn us ! — mat- 
ter, the cleanliest shift is to kiss. 

Orl. How if the kiss be denied? ^i 

Ros. Then she puts you to entreaty, and there begins 
new matter. 

Orl. Who could be out, being before his beloved mis- 
tress ? 

Ros. ^ Marry, that should you, if I were your mistress, 
or I should think my honesty ranker than my wit. 
Orl. What, of my suit? 

Ros. Not out of your apparel, and yet out of your suit. 
Am not I your Rosalind? ^° 



68 AS YOU LIKE IT. 

Orl. I take some joy to say you are, because I would be 
talking of her. 

Ros. Well in her person I say I will not have you. 

Orl. Then in mine own person I die. 

Ros. No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is al- 
most six thousand years old, and in all this time there was 
not any man died in his own person; videlicet, in a love- 
cause. Troilus had his brains dashed out with a Grecian 
club ; yet he did what he could to die before, and he is one 
of the patterns of love. Leander, he would have lived 
many a fair year, though Hero had turned nun, if it had 
not been for a hot midsummer night ; for, good youth, he 
went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont and being 
taken with the cramp was drowned : and the foolish chron- 
iclers of that age found it was ' Hero of Sestos/ But 
these are all lies : men liave died from time to time and 
worms have eaten them, but not for love. 97 

Orl. I would not have my right Rosalind of this mind, 
for, I protest, her frown might kill me. 

Ros. By this hand, it will not kill a fly. But come, now 
I will be your Rosalind in a more coming-on disposition, 
and ask me what you will, I will grant it. 

Orl. Then love me, Rosalind. 

Ros. Yes, faith, will I, Fridays and Saturdays and all. 

Orl. And wilt thou have me? 

Ros. Ay, and twenty such. 

Orl. What sayest thou? 

Ros. Are you not good? 

Orl. I hope so. ^°9 

Ros. Why then, can one desire too much of a good 
thing ? Come, sister, you shall be the priest and marry us. 
Give me your hand, Orlando. What do you say, sister ? 



ACT IV. SCENE I. 69 

Orl. Pray thee, marry us. 

Cel. I cannot say the words. 

Ros. You must begin, ' Will you, Orlando — ' 

CeL Go to. Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Ros- 
alind ? 

Orl I will. 

Ros. Ay, but when? 

Orl. Why now ; as fast as she can marry us. ^^° 

Ros. Then you must say '1 take thee, Rosalind, for 
wife.' 

Orl. I take thee, Rosalind, for wife. 

Ros. I might ask you for your commission ; but I do 
take thee, Orlando, for my husband: there's a girl goes 
before the priest; and certainly a woman's thought runs 
before her actions. 

Orl. So do all thoughts ; they are winged. 

Ros. Now tell me how long you would have her after 
you have possessed her. ^^° 

Orl. For ever and a day. 

Ros. Say ' a day,' without the ' ever.' No, no, Or- 
lando; men are April when they woo, December when 
they wed: maids are May when they are maids, but the 
sky changes when they are wives. I will be more jealous 
of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen, more 
clamorous than a parrot against rain, more new-fangled 
than an ape, more giddy in my desires than a monkey : I 
will weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain, and I 
will do that when you are disposed to be merry; I will 
laugh like a hyen, and that when thou art inclined to 
sleep. ^4^ 

Orl. But will my Rosalind do so? 



-70 AS YOU LIKE IT. 

Ros. By my life, she will do as I do. 

Orl O, but she is wise. 

Ros. Or else she could not have the wit to do this : the 
wiser, the waywarder: make the doors upon a woman's 
wit, and it will out at the casement; shut that and 'twill 
out at the key-hole ; stop that, 'twill fly with the smoke out 
at the chimney. ^^° 

Orl A man that had a wife with such a wit, he might 
say ' Wit, whither wilt ? ' 

Ros. You shall never take her without her answer, un- 
less you take her without her tongue. O, that woman that 
cannot make her fault her husband's occasion, let her never 
nurse her child herself, for she will breed it like a fool ! 

Orl. For these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee. 

Ros. Alas ! dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours. 

Orl. I must attend the duke at dinner : by two o'clock 
I will be with thee again. ^^° 

Ros. Ay, go your ways, go your ways; I knew what 
you would prove : my friends told me as much, and I 
thought no less : that flattering tongue of yours won me : 
'tis but one cast away, and so, come, death ! Two o'clock 
is your hour? 

Orl. Ay, sweet Rosalind. 

Ros. By my troth, and in good earnest, and so God 
mend me, and by all pretty oaths that are not dangerous, 
if you break one jot of your promise or come one minute 
behind your hour, I will think you the most pathetical 
break-promise and the most hollow lover and the most 
unworthy of her you call Rosalind that may be chosen out 
of the gross band of the unfaithful : therefore beware my 
censure and keep your promise. ^74 



ACT IV. SCENE 11. yi 

Orl. With no less religion than if thou wert indeed my 
Rosalind: so adieu. 

Ros. Well, Time is the old -justice that examines all 
such offenders, and let Time try : adieu. [Exit Orlando. 

Gel. You have simply misused our sex in your love- 
prate. 

Ros. O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou 
didst know how many fathom deep I am in love ! But it 
cannot be sounded: my affection hath an unknown bot- 
tom, like the bay of Portugal. 

Cel. Or rather, bottomless, that as fast as you pour 
affection in, it runs out. ^86 

Ros. No, that same wicked bastard of Venus that was 
begot of thought, conceived of spleen and born of mad- 
ness, that blind rascally boy that abuses every one's eyes 
because his own are out, let him be judge how deep I am 
in love. I'll tell thee, Aliena, I cannot be out of the sight 
of Orlando : I'll go find a shadow and sigh till he come. 

Cel. And I'll sleep. [Exeunt. 

Scene II. The forest. 

Enter Jaques, Lords, and Foresters. 

Jaq. Which is he that killed the deer ? 

A Lord. Sir, it was I. 

Jaq. Let's present him to the duke, like a Roman con- 
queror ; and it would do well to set the deer's horn upon 
his head, for a branch of victory. Have you no song, for- 
ester, for this purpose? 



72 



AS YOU LIKE IT. 



For. Yes, sir. 

Jaq. Sing it: 'tis no matter how it be in tune, so it 
make noise enough. 

Song. 

For. What shall he have that kill'd the deer ? '° 

His leather skin and horns to wear. 

Then sing him home ; 

[The rest shall hear this burden. 
Take thou no scorn to wear the horn ; 
It was a crest ere thou wast born : 

Thy father's father wore it. 

And thy father Bore it: 
The horn, the horn, the lusty horn 
Is not a thing to laugh to scorn. [Exeunt. 

Scene III. The forest. 
Enter Rosalind and Celia. 

Ros. How say you now? Is it not past two o'clock? 
and here much Orlando ! 

Cel. I warrant you, with pure love and troubled brain, 
he hath ta'en his bow and arrows and is gone forth to 
sleep. Look, who comes here. . 

Enter Silvius. 

Sil. My errand is to you, fair youth; 
My gentle Phebe bid me give you this : 
I know not the contents ; but, as I guess 



ACT IV. SCENE III. 73 

By the stern brow and waspish action 

Which she did use as she was writing of it, '° 

It bears an angry tenor: pardon me; 

I am but as a guiltless messenger. 

Ros. Patience herself would startle at this letter 
And play the swaggerer ; bear this, bear all : 
She says I am not fair, that I lack manners ; 
She calls me proud, and that she could not love me. 
Were man as rare as phoenix. 'Ods my will ! 
Her love is not the hare that I do hunt : 
Why writes she so to me? Well, shepherd, well. 
This is a letter of your own device. ^° 

Sil. No, I protest, I know not the contents : 
Phebe did write it. 

Ros. Come, come, you are a fool 

And turn'd into the extremity of love. 
I saw her hand ; she has a leathern hand, 
A freestone-color'd hand: I verily did think 
That her old gloves were on, but 'twas her hands : 
She has a huswife's hand ; but that's no matter : 
I say she never did invent this letter : 
This is a man's invention and his hand. 

SiL Sure, it is hers. ^° 

Ros. Why, 'tis a boisterous and a cruel style, 
A style for challengers ; why, she defies me. 
Like Turk to Christian : women's gentle brain 
Could not drop forth such giant-rude invention. 
Such Ethiope words, blacker in their effect 
Than in their countenance. Will you hear the letter? 

Sil So please you, for I never heard it yet ; 
Yet heard too much of Phebe's cruelty. 



74 AS YOU LIKE IT. 

Ros. She Phebes me : mark how the tyrant writes. 
[Reads] Art thou god to shepherd turn'd, 4o 

That a maiden's heart hath burn'd? 
Can a woman rail thus? 
Sit. Call you this railing? 
Ros. [Reads] 

Why, thy godhead laid apart, 
Warr'st thou with a woman's heart ? 
Did you ever hear such railing? 

Whiles the eye of man did woo me, 
That could do no vengeance to me. 
Meaning me a beast. 

If the scorn of your bright eyne so 

Have power to raise such love in mine, 
Alack, in me what strange effect 
Would they work in mild aspect! 
Whiles you chid me, I did love ; 
How then might your prayers move! 
He that brings this love to thee 
Little knows this love in me : 
And by him seal up thy mind; 
Whether that thy youth and kind 
Will the faithful offer take 6° 

Of me and all that I can make : 
Or else by him m.y love deny, 
And then I'll study how to die. 
Sil. Call you this chiding? 
Cel. Alas, poor shepherd! 

Ros. Do you pity him ? no, he deserves no pity. Wilt 
thou love such a woman? What, to make thee an instru- 
ment and play false strains upon thee ! not to be endured ! 



ACT IV. SCENE III. 



75 



Well, go your way to her, for I see love hath made thee a 
tame snake, and say this to her: that if she love me, I 
charge her to love thee ; if she will not, I will never have 
her unless thou entreat for her. If you be a true lover, 
hence, and not a word ; for here comes more company. 

\^Exit Silvms. 

Enter Oliver. 

OIL Good morrow, fair ones : pray you, if you know. 
Where in the purlieus of this forest stands 75 

A sheep-cote fenced about with olive trees ? 

Gel. West of this place, down in the neighbor bottom : 
The rank of osiers by the murmuring stream 
Left on your right hand brings you to the place. 
But at this hour the house doth keep itself ; ^° 

There's none within. 

OIL If that an eye may profit by a tongue. 
Then should I know you by description ; 
Such garments and such years : ' The boy is fair. 
Of female favor, and bestows himself 
Like a ripe sister : the woman low 
And browner than her brother.' Are not you 
The owner of the house I did enquire for ? 

Cel. It is no boast, being ask'd, to say we are. 

OIL Orlando doth commend him to you both, 90 

And to that youth he calls his Rosalind 
He sends this bloody napkin. Are you he ? 

Ros. I am : what must we understand by this ? 

OIL Some of my shame ; if you will know of me 
What man I am, and how, and why, and where 
This handkercher was stain'd. 



76 AS YOU LIKE IT. 

Cel. I pray you, tell it. 

OIL When last the young Orlando parted from you 
He left a promise to return again 
Within an hour, and pacing through the forest. 
Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy, ^°° 

Lo, what bef el ! he threw his eye aside. 
And mark what object did present itself: 
Under an oak, v/hose boughs were moss'd with age 
And high top bald with dry antiquity, 
A wretched ragged man, o'ergrown with hair, 
Lay sleeping on his back ; about his neck 
A green and gilded snake had wreathed itself, 
Who with her head nimble in threats approach'd 
The opening of his mouth ; but suddenly. 
Seeing Orlando, it unlinked itself, "° 

And with indented glides did slip away 
Into a bush : under which bush's shade 
A lioness, with udders all drawn dry. 
Lay couching, head on ground, with catlike watch, 
When that the sleeping man should stir ; for 'tis 
The royal disposition of that beast 
To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead : 
This seen, Orlando did approach the man 
And found it was his brother, his elder brother. 

Cel. O, I have heard him speak of that same brother; 
And he did render him the most unnatural ^^^ 

That lived amongst men. 

Oil. And well he might so do. 

For well I know he was unnatural. 

Ros. But, to Orlando : did he leave him there, 
Food to the suck'd and hungry lioness ? 



ACT IV. SCENE III. 77 

OIL Twice did he turn his back and purposed so ; 
But kindness, nobler ever than revenge, 
And nature, stronger than his just occasion, 
Made him give battle to the lioness, 

Who quickly fell before him : in which hurtling ^3o 

From miserable slumber I awaked. 

Gel. Are you his brother ? 

Ros. Was 't you he rescued? 

Gel. Was 't you that did so oft contrive to kill him ? 

OIL 'Twas I ; but 'tis not I : I do not shame 
To tell you what I was, since my conversion 
So sweetly tastes, being the thing I am. 

Ros. But, for the bloody napkin? 

OIL By and by. 

When from the first to last betwixt us two 
Tears our recountments had most kindly bathed, 
As how I came into that desert place : — ^^o 

In brief, he led me to the gentle duke, 
Who gave me fresh array and entertainment, 
Committing me unto my brother's love; 
Who led me instantly unto his cave. 
There stripp'd himself, and here upon his arm 
The lioness had torn some flesh away. 
Which all this while had bled ; and now he fainted 
And cried, in fainting, upon Rosalind. 
Brief, I recover'd him, bound up his wound ; 
And, after some small space, being strong at heart, ^so 

He sent me hither, stranger as I am. 
To tell this story, that you might excuse 
His broken promise, and to give this napkin 
Dyed in his blood unto the shepherd youth 



78 AS YOU LIKE IT. 

That he in sport doth call his Rosalind. {^Rosalind szvoons. 

Cel. Why, how now, Ganymede ! sweet Ganymede ! 

Oil. Many will swoon when they do look on blood. 

Cel. There is more in it. Cousin Ganymede ! 

OH. Look, he recovers. 

Ros. I would I were at home. 

Cel. We'll lead you thither. 

I pray you, will you take him by the arm ? ^^^ 

OIL Be of good cheer, youth : you a man ! you lack a 
man's heart. 

Ros. I do so, I confess it. Ah, sirrah, a body would 
think this was well counterfeited ! I pray you, tell your 
brother how well I counterfeited. Heigh-ho ! 

OIL This was not counterfeit : there is too great testi- 
mony in your complexion that it was a passion of earnest. 

Ros. Counterfeit, I assure you. 

OIL Well then, take a good heart and counterfeit to be 
a man. ^71 

Ros. So I do : but, i' faith, I should have been a woman 
by right. 

Cel. Come, you look paler and paler : pray you, draw 
homewards. Good sir, go with us. 

OIL That will I, for I must bear answer back 
How you excuse my brother, Rosalind. 

Ros. I shall devise something: but, I pray you, com- 
mend my counterfeiting to him. Will you go ? [^Exeunt. 



ACT V. SCENE 1. , 79 

ACT V. 

Scene I. The forest. 

Enter Touchstone and Audrey. 

Touch. We shall find a time, Audrey ; patience, gentle 
Audrey. 

And. Faith, the priest was good enough, for all the old 
gentleman's saying. 

Touch. A most wicked Sir Oliver, Audrey, a most vile 
Martext. But, Audrey, there is a youth here in the forest 
lays claim to you. 

Aud. Ay, I know who 'tis ; he hath no interest in m^e in 
the world : here comes the man yon mean. 9 

Touch. It is meat and drink to me to see a clown : by 
my troth, we that have good wits have much to answer 
for; we shall be flouting; we cannot hold. 

Enter William. 

Will. Good even, Audrey. 

Aud. God ye good even, William. 

Will. And good even to you, sir. 

Touch. Good even, gentle friend. Cover thy head, 
cover thy head ; nay, prithee, be covered. How old are 
you, friend? 

Will. Five and twenty, sir. 

Touch. A ripe age. Is thy name William? ^° 

Will William, sir. 

Touch. A fair name. Wast born i' the forest here ? 

Will. Ay, sir, I thank God. 

Touch. * Thank God ' ; a good answer. Art rich ? 

Will. Faith, sir, so so. 



8o ^^ you LIKE IT 

Touch. * So so ' is good, very good, very excellent 
good ; and yet it is not ; it is but so so. Art thou wise ? 

Will. Ay, sir, I have a pretty wit. ^^ 

Touch. Why, thou sayest well. I do now remember a 
saying, ' The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man 
knows himself to be a fool.' The heathen philosopher, 
when he had a desire to eat a grape, would open his lips 
when he put it into his mouth ; meaning thereby that 
grapes were made to eat and lips to open. You do love 
this maid? 

Will, I do, sir. 

Touch. Give me your hand. Art thou learned ? 

Will. No, sir. 38 

Touch. Then learn this of me : to have, is to have ; for 
it is a figure in rhetoric that drink, being poured out of a 
cup into a glass, by filling the one doth empty the other ; 
for all your writers do consent that ipse is he: now, you 
are not ipse, for I am he. 

Will. Which he, sir ? 

TovLch. He, sir, that must marry this woman. There- 
fore, you clown, abandon, — which is in the vulgar leave, 
— the society, — which in the boorish is company, — of 
this female, — which in the common is woman ; which 
together is, abandon the society of this female, or, clown, 
thou perishest ; or, to thy better understanding, diest ; or, 
to wit, I kill thee, make thee away, translate thy life into 
death, thy liberty into bondage : I will deal in poison with 
thee, or in bastinado, or in steel; I will bandy with thee 
in faction; I will o'er-run thee with policy; I will kill 
thee a hundred and fifty ways : therefore tremble, and 
depart. s6 



ACT IV. SCENE 11. 8i 

And. Do, good William. 

Will. God rest you merry, sir. [Exit 

Enter Corin. 

Cor. Our master and mistress seeks you ; come, away, 
away ! 

Touch. Trip, Audrey ! trip, Audrey ! I attend, I attend. 

[Exeunt. 

Scene II. The forest. 

Enter Orlando and Oliver. 

Orl. Is 't possible that on so little acquamtance you 
should like her ? that but seeing you should love her ? and 
loving woo? and, wooing, she should grant? and will you 
persever to enjoy her? 

on. Neither call the giddiness of it in question, the 
poverty of her, the small acquaintance, my sudden wooing, 
nor her sudden consenting ; but say with me, I love Aliena ; 
say with her that she loves me ; consent with both that we 
may enjoy each other: it shall be to your good; for my 
father's house and all the revenue that was old Sir Row- 
land's will I estate upon you, and here live and die a 
shepherd. ^^ 

Orl. You have my consent. Let your wedding be to- 
morrow : thither will I invite the duke and all 's contented 
followers. Go you and prepare Aliena ; for look you, here 
comes my Rosalind. 

Enter Rosalind. 

Ros. God save you, brother. 

Oil. And you, fair sister. [Exit, 



82 AS YOU LIKE IT. 

Ros. O, my dear Orlando, how it grieves me to see 
thee wear thy heart in a scarf! 2° 

O74. It is my arm. 

Ros. I thought thy heart had been wounded with the 
claws of a lion. 

Orl. Wounded it is, but with the eyes of a lady. 

Ros. Did your brother tell you how I counterfeited to 
swoon when he showed me your handkercher? 

Orl. Ay, and greater wonders than that. 

Ros. O, I know where you are: nay, 'tis true: there 
was never any thing so sudden but the fight of two rams 
and Caesar's thrasonical brag of ' I came, saw, and over- 
came ' : for your brother and my sister no sooner met but 
they looked, no sooner looked but they loved, no sooner 
loved but they sighed, no sooner sighed but they asked one 
another the reason, no sooner knew the reason but they 
sought the remedy; and in these degrees have they made 
a pair of stairs to marriage which they will climb incon- 
tinent: they are in the very wrath of love and they will 
together; clubs cannot part them. 38 

Orl. They shall be married to-morrow, and I will bid 
the duke to the nuptial. But, O, how bitter a thing it is 
to look into happiness through another man's eyes ! By so 
much the more shall I to-morrow be at the height of heart- 
heaviness, by how much I shall think my brother happy in 
having what he wishes for. 

Ros. Why then, to-morrow I cannot serve your turn 
for Rosalind? 

Orl. I can live no longer by thinking. 47 

Ros, I will weary you then no longer with idle talking. 
Know of me then, for now I speak to some purpose, that I 



ACT V. SCENE II. 83 

know you are a gentleman of good conceit: I speak not 
this that you should bear a good opinion of my knowl- 
edge, insomuch I say I know you are ; neither do I labor 
for a greater esteem than may in some little measure draw 
a belief from you, to do yourself good and not to grace me. 
Believe then, if you please, that I can do strange things : 
I have, since I was three year old, conversed with a ma- 
gician, most profound in his art and yet not damnable. If 
you do love Rosalind so near the heart as your gesture 
cries it out, when your brother marries Aliena, shall you 
marry her: I know into what straits of fortune she is 
driven; and it is not imxpossible to me, if it appear not 
inconvenient to you, to set her before your eyes to-morrow 
human as she is and without any danger. ^^ 

Orl. Speakest thou in sober meanings? 

Ros. By my life, I do ; which I tender dearly, though 
I say I am a magician. Therefore, put you in your best 
array ; bid your friends ; for if you will be married to-mor- 
row, you shall, and to Rosalind, if you will. 

Enter Silvius and Phebe. 

Look, here comes a lover of mine and a lover of hers. 

Phe. Youth, you have done me much ungentleness, 7° 
To shew the letter that I writ to you. 

Ros. I care not if I have : it is my study 
To seem despiteful and ungentle -to you : 
You are there followed by a faithful shepherd ; 
Look upon him, love him ; he worships you. 

Phe. Good shepherd, tell this youth what 'tis to love. 

Sil It is to be all made of sighs and tears ; 
And so I am for Phebe. 



84 ^^ you LIKE IT. 

Phe. And I for Ganymede. 

Orl. And I for Rosalind. 8° 

Ros. And I for no woman. 

SiL It is to be all made of faith and service; 
And so am I for Phebe. 

Phe. And I for Ganymede. 

Orl. And I for Rosalind. 

Ros. And I for no woman. 

Sil. It is to be all made of fantasy, 
All made of passion and all made of wishes, 
All adoration, duty, and observance. 
All humbleness, all patience and impatience, 9° 

All purity, all trial, all observance; 
And so am I for Phebe. 

Phe. And so am I for Ganymede. 

Orl. And so am I for Rosalind. 

Ros. And so am I for no woman. 

Phe. If this be so, why blame you me to love you ? 

Sil. If this be so, why blame you me to love you ? 

Orl. If this be so, why blame you me to love you ? 

Ros. Why do you speak too, ' Why blame you me to 
love you ? ' ^0° 

Orl. To her that is not here, nor doth not hear, 

Ros. Pray you, no m.ore of this ; 'tis like the howling of 
Irish wolves against the moon. [ To Sil. ] I will help you, 
if I can : \_To Phe.] I would love you, if I could. To-mor- 
row meet me all together [To Phe.] I will marry you, if 
ever I marry woman, and I'll be married to-morrow : [To 
[Orl.] I will satisfy you, if ever I satisfied man, and you 
shall be married to-morrow : [ To Sil. ] I will content you, 
if what pleases you contents you, and you shall be married 



ACT V. SCENE III. 85 

to-morrow. [To Orl.'\ As you love Rosalind, meet: [To 
Sil. ] as you love Phebe, meet : and as I love no woman, 
I'll meet. So fare you well : I have left you commands. "^ 

Sil. I'll not fail, if I live. 

Phe. Nor I. 

Orl Nor I. 

Scene III. The forest. 
Enter Touchstone and Audrey. 

Touch. To-morrow is the joyful day, Audrey; to-mor- 
row will we be married. 

And. I do desire it with all my heart; and I hope it is 
no dishonest desire to desire to be a woman of the world. 
Here come two of the banished duke's pages. 

Enter tzvo Pages. 

First Page. Well met, honest gentleman. 

Touch. By my troth, well met. Come, sit, sit, and a 
song. 

Sec. Page. We are for you : sit i' the middle. 

First Page. Shall we clap into 't roundly, without 
hawking or spitting or saying we are hoarse, which are 
the only prologues to a bad voice ? " 

Sec. Page. V faith, i' faith ; and both in a tune, like two 
gipsies on a horse. 

Song. 

It was a lover and his lass, 

With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino. 
That o'er the green corn-field did pass 

In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, 



86 AS YOU LIKE IT. 

When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding : 

Sweet lovers love the spring. ^° 

Between the acres of the rye. 

With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, 
These pretty country folks would lie, 

In spring time, &c. 

This carol they began that hour, 

With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino. 

How that a life was but a flower 
In spring time, &c. 

And therefore take the present time, 

With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino ; 30 

For love is crowned with the prime 

In spring time, &c. 

Touch. Truly, young gentlemen, though there was no 
great matter in the ditty, yet the note was very untuneable. 

First Page. You are deceived, sir: we kept time, we 
lost not our time. 

Touch. By my troth, yes; I count it but time lost to 
hear such a foolish song. God be wi' you ; and God mend 
your voices ! Come, Audrey. [Exeunt. 

Scene IV. The forest. 

Enter Duke senior, Amiens, Jaques, Orlando, 

Oliver^ and Celia. 

Duke S. Dost thou believe, Orlando, Ihat the boy 
Can do all this that he hath promised ? 



ACT V. SCENE IV. 87 

Orl I sometimes do believe, and sometimes do not ; 
As those that fear they hope, and know they fear. 

Enter Rosalind, Silvius, and Phebe. 

Ros. Patience once more, whiles our compact is urged : 
You say, if I bring in your Rosalind, 
You will bestow her on Orlando here? 

D%ike S. That would I, had I kingdoms to give with her. 

Ros. And you say, you will have her, when I bring her? 

Orl, That would I, were I of all kingdoms king. '° 

Ros. You say, you'll marry me, if I be willing? 

Phe. That would I, should I die the hour after. 

Ros. But if you do refuse to marry me, 
You'll give yourself to this most faithful shepherd? 

Phe. So is the bargain. 

Ros. You say, that you'll have Phebe, if she will? ^ 

Sil. Though to have her and death w^ere both one thing. 

Ros. I have promised to make all this matter even. 
Keep you your word, O duke, to give your daughter ; 
You yours, Orlando, to receive his daughter: ^° 

Keep your word, Phebe, that you'll marry me, 
Or else refusing me, to wed this shepherd : 
Keep your word, Silvius, that you'll marry her, 
If she refuse me : and from hence I go. 
To make these doubts all even. 

[Exeunt Rosalind and Celia. 

Duke S. I do remember in this shepherd boy 
Some lively touches of my daughter's favor. 

Orl. My lord, the first time that I ever saw him 
Methought he was a brother to your daughter : 
But, my good lord, this boy is forest-born. 



30 



88 AS YOU LIKE IT. 

And hath been tutor'd in the rudiments 
Of many desperate studies by his uncle, 
Whom he reports to be a great magician, 
Obscured in the circle of this forest. 

Enter Touchstone and Audrey. 

Jaq. There is, sure, another flood toward and these 
couples are coming to the ark. Here comes a pair of very 
strange beasts, which in all tongues are called fools. 

Touch. Salutation and greeting to you all ! 

Jaq, Good my lord, bid him welcome : this is the mot- 
ley-minded gentleman that I have so often met in the 
forest : he hath been a courtier, he swears. 4i 

Touch. If any man doubt that, let him put me to my 
purgation. I have trod a measure ; I have flattered a lady ; 
I have been politic with my friend, smooth with mine 
enemy ; I have undone three tailors ; I have had four quar- 
rels, and like to have fought one. 

Jaq. And how was that ta'en up ? 

Touch. Faith, we met, and found the quarrel was upon 
the seventh cause. 

Jaq. How seventh cause? Good my lord, like this 
fellow. 51 

Duke S. I like him very well. 

Touch. God 'ild you, sir ; I desire you of the like. I 
press in here, sir, amongst the rest of the country copula- 
tives, to swear and to forswear; according as marriage 
binds and blood breaks : a poor virgin, sir, an ill-favored 
thing, sir, but mine own; a poor humor of mine, sir, to 
take that that no man else will : rich honesty dwells like 
a miser, sir, in a poor house; as your pearl in your foul 
ovster. 



ACT V. SCENE IV. 89 

Duke S. By my faith, he is very swift and sententious. 

Touch, According to the fool's bolt, sir, and such dulcet 
diseases. ^^ 

Jaq. But, for the seventh cause ; how did you find the 
quarrel on the seventh cause? 

Touch. Upon a lie seven times removed : — bear your 
body more seeming, Audrey : — as thus, sir. I did dislike 
the cut of a certain courtier's beard : he sent me word, if 
I said his beard was not cut well, he was in the mind it 
was: this is called the Retort Courteous. If I sent him 
word again ' it was not well cut,' he would send me word, 
he cut it to please himself : this is called the Quip Modest. 
If again ' it was not well cut,' he disabled my judgement: 
this is called the Reply Churlish. If again ' it was not 
well cut,' he would answer, I spake not true : this is called 
the Reproof Valiant. If again ' it was not well cut,' he 
would say, I lied: this is called the Countercheck Quar- 
relsome: and so to the Lie Circumstantial and the Lie 
Direct. 79 

Jaq. And how oft did you say his beard was not well 
cut? 

Touch. I durst go no further than the Lie Circum- 
stantial, nor he durst not give me the Lie Direct; and so 
we measured swords and parted. 

Jaq. Can you nominate in order now the degrees of the 
lie? 

Touch. O sir, we quarrel in print, by the book ; as you 
have books for good manners : I will name you the de- 
grees. The first, the Retort Courteous ; the second, the 
Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the fourth, 
the Reproof Valiant ; the fifth, the Countercheck Quarrel- 



90 AS YOU LIKE IT. 

some ; the sixth, the Lie with Circumstance ; thet seventh, 
the Lie Direct. All these you may avoid but the Lie Di- 
rect; and you may avoid that too, with an If. I knew 
when seven justices could not take up a quarrel, but when 
the parties were met themselves, one of them thought but 
of an If, as, ' If you said so, then I said so ' ; and they 
shook hands and swore brothers. Your If is the only 
peace-maker; much virtue in If. ^9 

Jaq. Is not this a rare fellow, my lord ! he 's as good 
at any thing and yet a fool. 

Duke S. He uses his folly like a stalking-horse and 
under the presentation of that he shoots his wit. 

Enter Hymen, Rosalind, and Celia. 

Still Music. 

Hym. Then is there mirth in heaven, 

When earthly things made even 

Atone together. 
Good duke, receive thy daughter: 
Hymen from heaven brought her, 

Yea, brought her hither. 
That thou mightst join her hand with his "° 
Whose heart within his bosom is. 
Ros. [To duke] To you I give myself, for I am yours. 
[To Orl.] To you I give myself, for I am yours. 
Duke S. If there be truth in sight, you are my daughter. 
Orl. If there be truth in sight, you are my Rosalind. 
Phe. If sight and shape be true, 
Why then, my love adieu! 

Ros. I'll have no father, if you be not he : 



ACT V. SCENE IV. 91 

I'll have no husband, if you be not he : 
Nor ne'er wed woman, if you be not she. ^^° 

Hym. Peace, ho ! I bar confusion : 
'Tis I must make conclusion 

Of these most strange events : 
Here 's eight that must take hands 
To join in Hymen's bands. 

If truth holds true contents. 
You and you no cross shall part: 
You and you are heart in heart: 
You to his love must accord. 
Or have a woman to your lord; '30 

You and you are sure together, 
As the winter to foul weather. 
Whiles a wedlock-hymn we sing. 
Feed yourselves with questioning; 
That reason wonder may diminish. 
How thus we met, and these things finish. 

Song. 

Wedding is great Juno's crown: 

O blessed bond of board and bed! 
'Tis Hymen peoples every town; 

High wedlock then be honored: ^^o 

Honor, high honor and renown, 
To Hymen, god of every town! 
Duke S. O my dear niece, welcome thou art to me ! 
Even daughter, welcome, in no le^s degree. 

Phe. I will not eat my word, now thou art mine ; 
Thy faith my fancy to thee doth combine. 



92 ^^ you LIKE IT. 

Enter Jaques de Boys. 

Jaq. de B. Let me have audience for a word or two : 
I am the second son of old Sir Rowland, 
That bring these tidings to this fair assembly. 
Duke Frederick, hearing how that every day ^so 

Men of great worth resorted to this forest, 
Address'd a mighty power ; which were on foot, 
In his own conduct, purposely to take 
His brother here and put him to the sword : 
And to the skirts of this wild wood he came ; 
Where meeting with an old religious man, 
After some question with him, was converted 
Both from his enterprise and from the world ; 
His crown bequeathing to his banish'd brother, 
And all their lands restored to them again ^^° 

That were with him exiled. This to be true, 
I do engage my life. 

Duke S. Welcome, young man ; 

Thou offer'st fairly to thy brothers' wedding : 
To one his lands withheld, and to the other 
A land itself at large, a potent dukedom. 
First, in this forest let us do those ends 
That here were well begun and well begot : 
And after, every of this happy number 
That have endured shrewd days and nights with us 
Shall share the good of our returned fortune, *7o 

According to the measure of their states. 
Meantime, forget this new-fallen dignity 
And fall into our rustic revelry. 
Play, music ! And you, brides and bridegrooms all, 



ACT V. SCENE IV. 93 

With measure heap'd in joy, to the measures fall. 

Jaq. Sir, by your patience. If I heard you rightly, 
The duke hath put on a religious life 
And thrown into neglect the pompous court? 

J-aq. de B. He hath. 

Jaq. To him will I : out of these convertites ^^° 

There is much matter to be heard and learn'd. 
[To Duke] You to your former honor I bequeath; 
Your patience and your virtue well deserves it : 
[To OrL] You to a love that your true faith doth merit: 
[To Oli] You to your land and love and great allies : 
[To Sil.] You to a long and well-deserved bed: 
[To Touch.] And you to wrangling; for thy loving voy- 
age 
Is but for two months victualled. So, to your pleasures : 
I am for other than for dancing measures. 

Duke S. Stay, Jaques, stay. ^90 

Jaq. To see no pastime I : what you would have 
I'll stay to know at your abandon'd cave. [Exit. 

Duke S. Proceed, proceed : we will begin these rites. 
As we do trust they'll end, in true delights. [A dance. 

Epiloque. 

Ros. It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue ; 
but it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord the 
prologue. If it be true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis 
true that a good play needs no epilogue ; yet to good wine 
they do use good bushes, and good plays prove the better 
by the help of good epilogues. What a case am I in then, 
that am neither a good epilogue nor cannot insinuate with 
you in the behalf of a good play ! I am not furnished like 



g^ AS YOU LIKE IT. 

a beggar, therefore to beg will not become me: my way 
is to conjure you; and I'll begin with the women. I 
charge you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to 
like as much of this play as please you: and 'I charge 
you, O men, for the love you bear to women — as I per- 
ceive by your simpering, none of you hates them — that 
between you and the women the play may please. If I 
were a woman I would kiss as many of you as had 
beards that pleased me, complexions that liked me and 
breaths that I defied not : and, I am sure, as many as have 
good beards or good faces or sweet breaths will, for my 
kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell. \_Exeunt. 



NOTES AND QUESTIONS. 

ACT I. 

Scene I. 

Suggestion of Scene. The scene is laid in France at no very 
definite time and place; the architecture, such as is necessary, is 
therefore not a matter of vital importance. In this scene, let us 
suppose that a low tower and a steep roof appear in the back- 
ground, rising above a row of dense trees that fill the view to the 
feft and back. In the distance at the right is a prospect of fields 

and hills. 

Orlando is dressed in a shabby blue doublet, with ragged lace at 
the wrists; trunk hose, which cover the legs to the thigh; low 
shoes, turning up in a point; and a cap, from beneath which his 
long locks fall gracefully about his neck. Adam wears the dress 
of a laborer, stockings and blouse, perhaps; and is hatless. Dennis 
wears the more elaborate costume of a house servant, while Charles, 
in addition to hose, shoes and hat, wears only a loose shirt with 
short sleeves, his brawny arms being bare. Oliver is dressed like 
Orlando, but his garments are new and gaudy, and the lace at his 
wrists is new and unsoiled. 

2. " Poor a thousand crowns," a poor thousand crowns. 

3. " On his blessing." That is, the father would not give Oliver 
his blessing unless Oliver promised to " breed " (rear) Orlando well. 

6. " Profit," proficiency, excellence in scholarship. 

7. " Stays," keeps, detains. 

16. " Countenance," favor. 

17. "Hinds," servants. 

18. " Mines," undermines. 

27. " What make you here? " what are you doing here? Notice 
how Orlando turns the word, and gives it another meaning. 

30. " Marry," a mild oath upon the name of the Virgin Mary. 
A critic says it makes a poor pun upon " mar." 

33. " Be naught awhile," another mild oath, explained as equiv- 
alent to " a mischief on you ! " 

35. Explain " prodigal." t, . , x. f 

47. "Your coming before me etc.," your being born before 
me makes you the heir of the reverence that was once our father's. 

49. With what action does Oliver accompany his words, " What, 
boy " ? Describe the action that follows for a few speeches. 

95 



96 NOTES AND QUESTIONS. 

52 and 53. Commentators say that the word " villain " is useft 
in two senses. What are they? 

67. " Such exercises." Orlando means fencing, tilts, hunting, 
and other sports in which gentlemen of old engaged. 

68. "Allottery," portion. 

81. " Grow upon," annoy. 

82. " Physic your rankness," cure your insolence. 

109." Forest of Arden." Shakespeare took the story of the play 
from a contemporary novel, Lodge's " Rosalynde," the scene of 
which is laid mainly in the Forest of Ardennes, in north-eastern 
France. There was also a Forest of Arden in the poet's own 
county, Warwickshire. It is worthy of remark, too, that his 
mother's maiden name was Mary Arden. 

113, "The golden world," the golden age. 

121. " Shall acquit him well," will have to do his best. 

123. " Foil," defeat. 

125. "Withal," with it. 

126. " Intendment," intention. 

131. Why should Oliver say that he had used "underhand 
means " to dissuade Orlando ? 

133. "It," a pronoun used familiarly or contemptuously; here, 
the latter. 

146. "Anatomize," analyze, lay bare. 

153. " Gamester," a frolicsome fellow. 

156. "Full of noble device," explained as "full of noble con- 
ceptions and aims." 

159. " Misprised," undervalued. 

161. "Kindle." What is the force of this word? Compare 
"Macbeth," Act I, Scene III, line 121: 

" That trusted home 
Might yet enkindle you unto the crown." 

Qfiestions on the Scene, i. In what ways is this scene a good 
introduction to the play? 2. What reasons can you give to show 
who is the villain and who is the hero? 4. What speech of the 
villain is the most villainous? 5. What does the speech of Charles 
concerning the banished duke being in the Forest of Arden lead 
you to expect as to thvi general tone and spirit of the play? 6. Does 
the fact that the costumes are of an ancient date make your interest 
in the play greater or less? 7. Does the fact that human nature 
seems the same as now make your interest in the play greater or 
less? 8. What does the scene reveal concerning the disposition of 
estates in countries where there is a titled nobility? 9. Shakespeare 
is said to have played the part of Adam; is it a difficult one? 10. 
What in the scene arouses your interest for a future scene? 11. 
What contrasts in character, physical strength, loyalty, and worldly 
condition do you find in the scene? 12. It often happens in this 



ACT I. SCENE 11. 97 

play that before a character enters, a warning or cue is given; what 
are the instances in this scene? 13. Is your pleasure in the scene 
greater or less because of the fact that it is prose rather than 
poetry ? 

Scene II. 

Description of Scene. A lawn before the duke's palace. At 
the left one sees one side of the palace, the wall being broken by 
three or four windows. Above, is a balcony of curved and twisted 
iron, upon which opens a window that is broad and low, and hung 
with curtains that are pulled to either side. In the background, 
near the middle of the stage, are two or three large trees. To the 
right, in the distance, is a grove, which half hides a little church. 
Celia and Rosalind are dressed in elaborately figured gowns^ 
with trimmings of fur. On their heads are long conical caps, about 
two feet high, from the top of which hang long kerchiefs, reaching 
almost or quite to the ground. Touchstone wears the conventional 
dress of the court jester, including the cap and bells ; and in his 
hand he carries his bauble. Le Beau, the duke and lords, are 
attired in the fashion of Oliver in the first scene, but much more 
elaborately; and the duke himself, by virtue of his rank, wears 
shoes with points a foot or two long, and curving up. Orlando and 
Charles are rather wwattired than attired, wearing the meager gar- 
ments of athletes. 

I. " Coz," cousin. 
5. " Learn," teach. 
8. " So," provided that. 
II. "Tempered," composed. 

29. " Housewife Fortune." Fortune is represented with a wheel 
" to signify to you," as Fluellen, the Welshman in " Henry V.," says, 
" which is the moral of it, that she is turning, and inconstant, and 
mutability, and variation." " Housewife " is used contemptuously 
for hussy, a worthless woman. 

33. " Bountiful blind woman." Fortune is represented with a 
bandage about her eyes. 

36. " Honest," virtuous. 

37. " Ill-favoredly." ill-favored. 

38. " Nay, now thou goest etc." Explain. 

41. " When nature etc." This speech als© needs explanation, 
as do several of the witty speeches that follow. 

43. " Flout," mock. 

46. " Natural," idiot. 

52. " Whetstone of the wits." Wright explains this as an 
allusion to an arithmetic by Robert Recorde ; it was called " The 
Whetstone of Witte." 



98 NOTES AND QUESTIONS. 

6i. "Naught," bad. 
79. " Taxation," impudence. 
94. " Color," kind. 

99. " Laid on with a trowel." A trowel is not an instrument 
for delicate, but rather for coarse, work ; hence to lay on with a 
trowel was to do a thing clumsily, coarsely ; according to Celia, 
Touchstone's wit is clumsy. This is but one explanation of this 
doubtful passage. One critic supposes it to be a hit at Ben Jonson, 
who, in his early manhood, was a mason. 

100. Explain the play on the word "rank." 

102. "Amaze," confuse; the wit of the ladies is too much for 
Le Beau. 

114 and 115. These lines have caused much discussion, partly 
because of the pun, and partly because the speeches are supposed to 
be improperly distributed. One explanation is that the words, " ' Be 
it known unto all men by these presents,' " belong to Touchstone. 
After Le Beau has mentioned the three young men, Rosalind sug- 
gests that they have " bills (pikes) on their necks," which is to 
say, in our phrase, on their shoulders. Le Beau, further, has used 
the word " presence," and Touchstone plays on both " bills " and 
" presence ; " for a " bill " was also a legal document containing the 
words, " Be it known unto all men by these presents." The matter 
is not of vital importance. 

122. " Dole," grief. 

132. " Broken music." Another expression that has been the 
cause of ingenious speculation. It probably means nothing more 
than, — the music of rib-breaking. 

171. "Misprised," undervalued. 

177. " Gracious," favored. 

192. "Working," endeavor. Paraphrase the speech, making it 
an answer to Charles's question. 

198. " Come your ways," come on. 

199. Why "Hercules"? "Speed" has the sense of protector, 
or helper. 

206. "Well breathed," well started. 

216. " Still," coustantly. 

223. " Calling," name, appellation, 

228. "Unto," in addition to. 

232. " Sticks me at heart," sticks, or stabs, me to the heart. 

234. " Justly," " exactly." Wright. 

236. " Out of suits with fortune." There are several explana- 
tions of this expression. Steevens says, " It means, I believe, turned 
out of her service, and stripped of her livery." 

241. " Quintain." This was an instrument for the sport of youths 
in ancient times. -There was an upright post, on the top of which 
was a crosspiece. On one end of the crosspiece was a broad, fiat 



ACT I. SCENE IL 



99 



board, and on the other a bag of sand. A man would ride at the 
bag and attempt to hit it with his lance ; and much skill and speed 
was necessary to get away without being hit in the back by the bag 
of sand as it swung around. 

254. " Condition," temper. 

255. " That he etc/' Scan. 

256. " Humorous," full of whims, capricious. 

257. " Conceive," imagine. 
262. " Lesser," smaller. 
269. "Argument," reason. 

274. " In a better world," in better times. 

276. " Rest," remain. 

277. " From the smoke into the smother." Explain. 
Questions on the Scene, i. What events in the scene help the 

story along? 2. Compare and contrast the feelings of Rosalind and 
Celia at the beginning and at the end of the scene. 3. Touchstone 
enters, perhaps, on the trot; he is singing, and his bells are jing- 
ling merrily. He circles about the two young women, and probably 
makes some impudent gesture or other. What new does he bring 
into the play? 4. Do you regard the banter of the two young 
women and Touchstone as fine examples of wit? What is the best 
part of it? 5. When Le Beau enters, the clown steals around behind 
him, runs his fingers lightly over the other's fine doublet, fingers the 
lace at his wrist, and looks at all critically ; then makes a grimace, 
or holds his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing. Why ? 
6. Does Rosalind pronounce the words, " Is yonder the man ? " with 
indifferent curiosity or with eagerness ? Explain. 7. Do you fancy 
4:hat there is anything unusual in Orlando's manner as he confronts 
the young women for the first time ? 8. What are Rosalind's looks 
and actions when Celia pronounces the speech beginning, " Young 
gentleman " ? 9. When Rosalind entreats Orlando to withdraw from 
the contest, does she really mean it? 10. When Orlando makes the 
speech beginning, " I beseech you," what are Rosalind's looks and 
actions? What part of the speech affects her most deeply? 11. 
What effect does Charles's speech beginning, " No, I warrant your 
grace," have on your feeling toward him after the wrestling match? 
12. What effect does the following speech of Orlando have on your 
feeling toward him after the wrestling match? 13. When you con- 
sider the result of the wrestling, what do you think should be 
the physical appearance of Orlando? 14. Is there anything in 
the scene to indicate the physical appearance of Rosalind? 15. The 
wrestling is usually difficult to arrange, for actors are not generally 
skilled in the sport. Furness says that in a presentation of the play 
in Munich, the wrestlers stood behind a barrier, only the upper parts 
of their bodies showing; thus their lack of skill was not observed by 
the audience. Another way in which to accomplish the same result, 

l.ofC 



100 NOTES AND QUESTIONS. 

would be to have the people on the stage stand about the contestants 
and screen them from the view o£ the audience, who would get only 
glimpses of brawny arm.s and bodies while the struggle proceeds. 
Which way do you thing tlTe better? i6. What effect on your feel- 
ing for Orlando has the duke's dislike for the young man's father? 
17. What effect has this same circumstance on the feeling of Orlando 
and Rosalind for each other? 18. Consider Rosalind's, "Had I 
known etc.", and reconsider question 9. 19. Can you find the key- 
note of the play in Celia's speech beginning, " Gentle cousin " ? 20. 
As Rosalind says, " Shall we go, coz ? " she exhibits a playful and 
laughing reluctance. Explain. 21. If, when Rosalind and Celia 
start away, and Orlando's back is turned for an instant, Rosalind 
should throw a half playful and half serious kiss at him, would she 
appear too bold and unmaidenly? 22. When Rosalind says, "He 
calls us back," what are her looks, tone, manner? 23. When Celia 
says, " Will you go, coz ? " she speaks impatiently ; even takes Rosa- 
lind by the arm, and appears quite shocked. Why? 24. Orlando 
says that something weaker than Charles has overthrown him. What 
qualities of this " something weaker " have been the cause of his 
overthrow? 25. When Le Beau gives Orlando the warning, Or- 
lando quickly changes the subject. Do you detect the humor in this? 
Do you not fancy that he is casting anxious glances in a certain 
direction ? 26. Dandies are not usually held in the highest esteem ; 
has Le Beau any admirable qualities ? 2y. Why has Shakespeare 
contrived to have these lovers meet in the forest, where rank is of 
small importance? 28. Why does the poet change, in this scene, 
from prose to poetry? 29, It has been said that this is the scene 
in which Shakespeare must have determined whether the play was 
to be a comedy or a tragedy. Explain. Incidentally it will be neces- 
sary to explain the difference between comedy and tragedy. 

Scene III. 

Suggestion of Scene. A room in the palace. The walls are 
wainscoted to half their height in paneled woods, the main device of 
which is the lily of France. In the center, at the rear, is a large 
triple window, the central part of which is open ; and outside may be 
seen the railing of a balcony, and beyond this the deep foliage of 
evergreens. At the right and rear is a large canopied bed; on the 
tail piece of it are carved the arms of a family of the French nobil- 
ity. Near the center, in front, stands a large table, with sides and 
legs fancifully carved. Rosalind sits at it, her chin propped dis- 
consolately in her hands, gazing fixedly at nothing. Celia sits a 
little to her left, working at embroidery, which is stipported before 
her in a frame. When she spcjife, iResalind starts. 
I. Why "Cupid have mercy"? 



ACT I. SCENE III. loi 

II. "My child's father," the man I am to marry. It has been 
conjectured that there is an error in the printing, and that Shake- 
speare wrote it " my father's child." 

i8. "Hem," cough. 

30. " Chase," sequence of argument. 

31. "Dearly," greatly; merely a superlative. 

34. This line contains a difficulty. Perhaps the " not " was 
inserted by mistake. Furness quotes Malone, — " Celia answers 
Rosalind (who had desired her 'not to hate Orlando, for her sake ') 
as if she had said 'love him, for my sake : ' to which the former 
replies, ' Why should I not (i. e. love him) ? ' " 

39. " Cousin," often used loosely to mean relative. 

50. " Purgation," proof of innocence. Furness calls attention 
to the fact that purgation " demanded not alone oaths, but ordeals 
by fire, or water, or combat." 

54. " Likelihood," probability. 

67. " Remorse," pity. 

72. " Juno's swans," It was Venus that was drawn by swans. 
Shakespeare made a mistake. 

75. Scan, remembering that in Shakespeare's time some words 
were not pronounced with the same number of syllables as now. 

78. " Show," appear. 

84. " Provide," prepare. 

99. " Change," that is, of fortune. 

109. " Umber," a brown pigment, so called because it is said to 
have come from Umbria. 
III. " Stir," excite. 

113. " Suit," dress. 

114. Curtle-axe," cutlass. 

117- "Swashing," sv/aggering, bragging. 

125. "Aliena." The word is accented on the second syllable. 

126. "Assay'd," tried. 
130. " Woo," gain, win. 

Questions on the Scene, i. Is the scene important from the 
standpoint of plot? 2. How does the mood of the two young women 
contrast with that of the previous scene? 3. What is the best retort 
that Rosalind makes to Celia (before the entrance of the duke) ? 4. 
Where is the humor of Rosalind's speech, " The duke my father 
loved his father dearly"? Is the humor better if Rosalind is con- 
scious, or unconscious, of it? 5. What is the manner of the duke 
as he enters? 6, How does the tone of the scene change at his 
entrance? 7. Do you take the duke to be a strong or a weak man? 
8. Does Rosalind meet the situation courageously? 9. How many 
reasons has she now to be unhappy? 10. What were the duke's rea- 
sons for banishing her? 11. There is a marked change in the 
manner of the two young women when the duke departs ; what is 



I02 NOTES AND QUESTIONS. 

it? 12. What is there in the scene that makes you think even better 
of Celia than you thought before? 13. Do you detect a difficulty 
ahead of the actress that takes the part of Rosalind? 14. Some 
critics have pointed out an improbability in this scene. Have you 
detected, it? And if so, does it detract from your pleasure in the 
play? 

Questions on the Act. i. What main division of the plot appears 
in the act? 2. In what way do the scenes contrast? 3. What is 
the theme of the play? 4. How do the characters of Rosalind and 
Celia contrast? 5. It has been said that the play makes a poor 
effect on the stage unless the woman who takes the part of Rosalind 
have great dramatic talent. Why? 6. In what way is the interest 
held over to the next act? 

ACT IT. 

Scene I. 

Suggestion of Scene. Let us suppose that the scene is laid on 
a hillside. Beginning at the front and the right, the slope rises 
backwards and to the left. Trees and rocks stand so thickly as 
to shut off all view beyond, except that at the right a deep and nar- 
row glen is faintly suggested in the darkness of the wood. 

After making his first speech, the duke reclines upon a great rock 
and listens to his friend's account of the vagaries of Jaques. 

I. Scan. What word requires change of accent? 

3. What word in the line is particularly effective? 

5. " The penalty of Adam." This is doubtless " the seasons' 
difference," for in the Garden of Eden, before the fall, there was 
not, it is supposed, any unseasonable change of weather. 

7. There are two cases of alliteration in this line. 

14. " Jewel." Much has been said about the toadstone. It will 
be sufficient to quote Furness's quotation from Edward Fenton's 
Secrete Wonders of Nature, " that there is founde in the heades of 
old and great toades, a stone which they call Borax or Stelon : it is 
commonly found in the head of a hee toad, of power to repulse 
poysons." 

15. "Haunt;" the duke means that the public does not haunt 
him and his friends there in the forest. 

16 and 17. Find the alliteration in these two lines. 

22. " Irks," grieves. Is " fools " used in its ordinary sense 
here? 

2^. "Burghers," citizens. What is the sense of "desert"? 

24. " Confines," boundaries, domains. " Forked heads." What 
are these? 



ACT 11. SCENE III. 103 

2,6. Should " Jaques " be pronounced in one or in two syl- 
lables ? 

30. Why is " steal " a better word than merely go or pass? 

32. Can you see any reason for the fact that this line is pleasing 
to the ear? For it must be remembered that one difference between 
prose and poetry, is that the latter sounds better. 

41. Scan. 

44. " Moralize," moralize upon, draw a moral from. 

46. What word in the line is particularly well selected? 

50. And in this line? 

55. What is the force of " fat and greasy " ? 

.58. " Invectively," bitterly. 

6y. " Cope," meet, encounter. 

68. " Matter," ideas. 
Questions on the Scene, i. Is the purpose of the scene to intro- 
duce characters or to tell an essential part of the story? 2. What 
manner of man was Jaques ? 3. Why was he sorry for the wounded 
deer? 4. Compare the speeches of the First Lord in this scene with 
tire speech of Le Beau, Act I, Scene II, line 251. What difference 
of feeling is there toward the two dukes? 5. Do you think the 
banished duke was a mild or a severe ruler before his banishment? 
6. In the speech beginning in line 25, show that Shakespeare se- 
lected well the incident suited to his purpose. 7. What makes a 
scene dramatic? Is this scene particularly so? 8. What qualities 
has the scene that make it attractive? 

Scene II. 

m 

Suggestion of Scene. The same as that of Act I, Scene III, — 
the deserted room of Celia, about which the duke looks sadly. 

3. "Are of consent and sufferance," have consented to this, 
and suffered it. 

7. What well selected word has the line? 

8. " Roynish," from the French word, rogneux, scurvy. It is a 
term of strong disapproval; troublesome, unruly. 

13- Scan this line, making three syllables of "wrestler." 
20. " Inquisition," inquiry. Why is " quaii " a better word than 
fail would be? 

Questions on the Scene, i. See the first question on the pre- 
vious scene. How would you answer it in the present case? 2. 
What contrast can you now make between the two dukes? 

Scene III. 

Suggestion of Scene. The same as the first scene of the play, 
3. " Memory," memorial. 



104 NOTES AND QUESTIONS. 

4. " Make you," do you. 

7. " Fond," foolish. 

8. What is the " bonny priser " ? " Humorous," full of whims, 
capricious. 

12 and 13. There is a paradox in these lines; explain. 

26. " Practices," plots, evil designs. 

27. " . . . . place . . . butchery." These words are evidently 
contrasted; what do they mean? 

28. What quality of good writing is gained by cutting this line 
up into short sentences ? 

32. What figure has Shakespeare used in this line to make the 
sound forcible? 

37. " Blood," relationship ; " diverted," become hostile. 
58. " Meed," reward. 

65, " In lieu of," in return for. 

66. " Come thy ways," come on. 

Questions on the Scene, i. What events in the scene help the 
story along? 2. What are the bonds of union between Orlando 
and the old servant ? 3. Contrast the voices and the manner of 
Orlando and Adam. 4. What evidence of good moral character 
does the scene show in the case of Orlando? 5. What contrast is 
shown in this respect between him and his brother? 6. Did Adam 
tell the truth about his physical condition? 7. Show where the actor 
who takes the part of Adam must make his action contradict his 
words. 8. Which of the two actors has the more difficult part? 
9. There are four lines in the scene that seem inferior to the rest as 
poetry, perhaps because the meter is too mechanical. Find them. 

Scene IV. 

Suggestion of Scene. The Forest of Arden. Near the right and 
the front there is a great tree, gnarled and twisted; it stands in the 
edge of a little bank or ledge which falls about three feet, the ground 
on the right of the tree thus being lower than the main part of the 
stage on the left. In the background there is a wealth of tree and 
shrub ; and in the distance one can see a thatched roof and the wall 
of a sheep fold. 

As the curtain rises upon the scene, Rosalind and Touchstone 
enter almost carrying Celia between them ; they stagger with weari- 
ness, and sink down upon the roots of the great tree at the right, 
thus being screened from Corin and Silvius, who enter from the 
left, and converse together without being aware of the presence of 
anybody else. When Rosalind speaks to Corin, she rises, steps for- 
ward, swaggers, putting on mannish flotirishes. 

6. " Weaker vessel ; " an allusion to the first epistle of Peter, 



ACT II. SCENE IV. 105 

in which is the expression, " giving honor unto thy wife, as unto 
the weaker vessel." What figure is in " doublet and hose etc." f 

10. " Bear no cross." This is a play upon the common biblical 
expression and upon the fact that in old times a penny had a cross 
stamped on it so that it might be broken in four pieces. 

35. " Wearing ; " compare our phrase wear out, meaning to tire 
out. 

41. " Searching of," searching for. 

46. " Batlet," a little bat or club that was used to beat clothes 
in the wash tub. " Chopt," chapped. 

47. " Peascod." Furness gives interesting information from 
different sources in regard to this word. It seems that in olden 
times a lover, if he saw a peascod upon the vine, would snatch it 
off suddenly, and if the peas did not spill, the omen was good, and 
he would present his capture to his lady love. It is said further 
that the kitchen maid, when she finds nine peas in a pod, lays them 
on the lintel of the kitchen door; and the first man who enters is 
to be her husband. 

51. "As all is mortal etc." This passage is not understood, 
and it seems useless to try to explain it. 

53 and 54. Furness says, — " It seems almost needless to point 
out that Rosalind means aware, and Touchstone means cautious." 

57 " Upon my fashion," after my fashion. 

74. What figure in " fleeces " ? 

76. " Recks," cares. 

78. " Cote," shepherd's hut. " Bound of feed," limits of his 
pasturage rights. 

82. " My " is the emphatic word ; the shepherd means that so 
far as his authority goes they are welcome. 

83. "What is he?" where we would say. Who is he? The 
inquiry is for his rank rather than for his identity. 

94. " Feeder," servant. 
Questions on the Scene, i. What events advance the story? 2. 
Compare the manner and the voices of Rosalind, Celia and Touch- 
stone. 3. How is the audience likely to be affected by seeing a 
person dressed like a man bvit acting like a woman ? 4. Does it 
appear in the scene vvhether Rosalind was the proper one of the 
two young women to don man's apparel? 5. Where is there a 
decided change in Rosalind's manner ^ 6. Has this scene a greater 
or a less degree of action than the preceding? 7. Rosalinds are 
usually dressed in a more or less feminine manner ; is this right 
or wrong? 8. Upon which of the three wanderers does the re- 
sponsibility of their welfare mainly rest? 9. What incident in the 
scene causes Rosalind to think of a part of her own history? 10. 
What expectation aroused in Act I, Scene III, should be satisfied 
here, and is not? 11. What are the symptoms of love as set forth 



io6 NOTES AND QUESTIONS. 

in the scene? 12. Point out how Touchstone makes fun of lovers. 
13. Explain the witty sallies of Rosalind and Touchstone. 14. What 
new is found h^re that makes the play a pastoral? 15. XVhat is the 
effect of the short lines in the speech beginning in line 30? 

Scene V. 

Suggestion of Scene. The same as the preceding, as managers 
of theaters repeat the scenes in Shakespeare's plays as often as 
they can ; otherwise the expense of production would be greatly in- 
creased and the time of presentation greatly lengthened. 

As the previous scene ends, a song and the soimd of footsteps in 
the leaves on the ground are heard, and Amiens, Jaques and others 
enter. 

23. " Dog-apes," baboons. 

27. " Cover," lay the cloth for the meal. 

31. "Disputable," fond of disputing, arguing. 

42. " In despite of my invention ; " in spite of the fact that I 
have but little invention, imagination. Jaques means that it takes 
but little ability to write as good a song as that sung by Amiens. 
What do you think about it? 

so. " Ducdame." The commentators have expended much in- 
genuity in attempting to explain this. Johnson reads it. Due ad me, 
bring him to me. But this is Latin, not Greek as Jaques say. It 
is probably best to consider it mere meaningless sound to fit the 
meter. 

57. " Firstborn of Egypt," a proverbial expression for people of 
rank, according to Johnson. 

58. " Banquet." Wright says that the banquet was, strictly 
speaking, the wine and dessert after dinner. 

Questions on the Scene, i. Some scenes in a play are what we 
may call vital or essential, and some are introductory to the vital 
or essential scenes ; which is this ? 2. What evidence does the 
scene afford that Jaques is "melancholy"? 3. How does the scene 
contrast with the one before it? 4. How do Jaques and Amiens 
contrast? 5. Does the scene derive its interest from its dramatic 
force, or from something else? 6. Does pasto-ral life seem to be 
in favor with all persons in the scene? 7. What effect would such 
a life as that described in Amiens' song have on people? 8. What 
foible has Amiens in common with other musicians ? 

Scene VI. 

Suggestion of Scene. The same scene continues. Orlando and 
Adam, the former supporting the latter, enter on one side as the 
others go out on the opposite side. 



ACT IL SCENE VII. 107 

5. " Comfort," equivalent to he comforted. 

7. " Conceit," imagination. 

Questions on the Scene. 1. See the first question on the pre- 
vious scene, and answer the same question here. 2. How did Adam 
misjudge himself in a former scene.'' 3. How does the scene con- 
trast with the previous one? 

Scene VII. 

Suggestion of Scene. The same scene continues. As Orlando 
goes away with Adam, there come servants with a table set for 
the duke and his men, who enter a moment later. 
2. What is the emphatic word? 

5. " Compact of jars," made up of discords. _ 

6. " Discord in the spheres ; " an allusion to the old belief in 
the music of the spheres. 

13. " Motley," parti-colored, the dress of the jester. 

19. Notice in this line one of Shakespeare's means of jesting; 
it is to ignore the essential part of a speech, and reply to sonie part 
of it to which an answer was not expected. Jaques has said, " Good 
morrow, fool," and the fool should reply to the salutation ; but, in- 
stead, he takes up the word " fool " and replies to that. 

20. " Dial," a portable sundial. " Poke," pouch or pocket. 

21. Explain "lack-luster." 

23. " Wags," moves. . ^^ 

30. " Crow," " laugh merrily." Wright. " Chanticleer, the 

cock. 

32. " Sans," the French preposition, without. 

34. " Wear," dress. 

39. " Dry as the remainder biscuit." " In the physiology of 
Shakespeare's time a dry brain accompanied slowness of apprehen- 
sion and a retentive memory." Wright. 

41. Scan. ^ , 1 r 

42. " Mangled forms." Such a use as Touchstone makes ot 
the cross on a penny in the fourth scene is probably the kind of 
saying that Jaques has in mind. 

44. "Thou shalt have one." Does the duke mean that Jaques 

is a fool? 

50. Scan. , . 

55. The Words "Not to" were inserted by a ^critic because 
he thought they had been omitted by mistake. " Bob," a jest. 

56. " Anatomized," analyzed, laid bare. ^^ ^^ ^^ 

57. " Squandering," scattering, random. " Glances," " side 

hits." Wright. . . 

63. "Counter," a piece of metal used for calculating; it is used 



io8 NOTES AND QUESTIONS. 

here in the sense of wager, for counters had the appearance of 
money. 

66. " The brutish sting," " the impulse of the animal nature." 
Wright. 

67. " Headed evils," sores grown to a head. 

71. "Tax," cry out on, censure. "Party," person. The word 
is no longer used in this sense except in legal documents. 

73. " Wearer's very means," that is, the means of the person 
who dresses extravagantly; for Jaques is here talking of the dis- 
play of pride. 

75. " City-woman," the woman who lives in the city. 

76. " The cost etc." An allusion to extravagant dressing — 
that so extravagant that only princes can pay the bill. 

79. " Of basest function," of lowest office. 

80. " Bravery," finery. This speech may be interpreted thus, — 
When I cry out on pride as displayed in fine dressing, some low 
fellow may say, ' Well, you didn't pay for my clothes,' being thtis 
impertinent because he thinks I am criticizing him. But in reality 
he admits that the criticism is just; by being offended he shows 
that " the shoe fits." 

90. " Cock." Perhaps Jaques calls Orlando a cock because he 
makes sO much noise. 

94. " Vein," disposition. 

96. " Inland bred," as distinguished from being uplandish bred, 
that is, bred in the uplands or highlands, where there was little 
social refinement. In this connection the word outlandishj mean- 
ing foreign, is interesting. 

97. " Nurture," culture, refinement. 

100. "An," if. The pronunciation of English has changed 
somewhat since the time of Shakespeare ; his English would sound 
to us like the Irish pronunciation. Thus Shakespeare said tay for 
tea. In this line, you can, by pronouncing a certain word the Irish 
way, see that Jaques probably intended to make a pun. 

102 and 103. What is noteworthy about the rhetoric here? 

III. Why should the forest be "melancholy" to Orlando? 

125. "Upon command," "in answer to your command." 
Wright. 

144. " Mewling," mewing, like a cat. 

148. " Sighing like furnace." A sigh, on a frosty day, is quite 
visible ; hence the comparison. 

150. " Pard," leopard. 

156. " Saws," wise sayings. Mr. W. D. Howells has written a 
novel called "A Modern Instance." The title is a literary allusion. 

160. " Hose," breeches. 

166. " Sans," the French preposition, without. 



ACT II. SCENE VIL 109 

175. "Unkind," unnatural. See note on "milk of human kind- 
ness," " Macbeth," Act I, Scene V, line 16, of this series. 

182. " Heigh-ho." Furness quotes White as saying that the 
pronunciation is hay-ho. The " Holly " was an emblem of mirth. 

186. " Benefits forgot." Woolcott Balestier wrote a book which 
he called " Benefits Forgot." Thus there are at least two American 
books that took their titles from this scene. 

187. " Warp." There has been much comment on this word. 
One critic thinks it means the warping of a frozen pond, for it is 
often observed that such a surface is concave. Another critic thinks 
it means simply freeze. Either interpretation is good; and there 
are others. 

193. " Effigies," likeness. 

194. " Limn'd," drawn. 

Questions on the Scene. 1. See the first questions on the two 
previous scenes, and answer the same question here. 2. As the 
scene proceeds, we hear the duke and a lord talking, but we per- 
ceive at once that we have not heard the beginning of the conver- 
sation; what effect has this upon us? 3. How does this scene com- 
pare with the preceding ones as to dramatic force? 4. Would you 
call it intensely dramatic? 5. What charm has it other than dra- 
matic force? 6. What different effects have the entrance of 
Jaques and of Orlando? Which is the more dramatic? 7. How 
does Orlando keep up his heroic character? 8. Why, at a certain 
place, does Orlando change his manner very markedly? 9. What 
speech in the scene is the greatest tax on the powers of the actor? 

10. Compare Orlando's and Jaques's reasons for being melancholy. 

11. Against what things does Jaques direct his raillery? 12. Dow- 
den says that " Jaques sips the cup of woe with all the gust of an 
epicure." Explain. 13. Victor Hugo says of Jaques, " It is not 
against society that he has a grievance, but against existence." 
Explain. 14. Dowden, again, says that Jaques's melancholy is " but 
sentimental, a self-indulgent humor." Explain. 15. Do you think 
that Shakespeare could have put his own feelings into the mouth 
of Jaques? 16. With what person in the scene does Jaques con- 
trast most strongly? 17. Could Jaques be a hero? 18. Concern- 
ing the speech beginning in line 12, a critic says, " It is plain that 
he (Touchstone) has been mocking Jaques ; and, as usual, the mocked 
thinks himself the mocker." Can you explain this? 19. Go through 
the speech beginning in line 139 and select the best of the descrip- 
tive words and phrases, explaining why they are good. 20. Find a 
place in the scene similar to its beginning, where the audience does 
not hear all the conversation. 21. What two speeches are most 
suitable to commit to memory? 22. Have you ever heard quota- 
tions from this scene? 

Questions on the Act. i. What main division of the plot appears 



no 



NOTES AND QUESTIONS. 



in the scene? 2. The playwright must carefully observe the unity 
of his play ; that is, all incidents and all thoughts must suit the 
general plan. Prove that Shakespeare has not erred in this respect 
in this act. 3. How many love stories have been begun in the 
play ? 4. Point out all the particulars that make the play pastoral, 
idyllic. 5. It has been said that the play contains a fool and a 
philosopher. Explain. 6. A play gains strength, naturalness, and 
interest from having a great variety of characters. Show that 
Shakespeare has such a variety in this play. 7. Which of the two 
acts that you have read holds the interest over more strongly to the 
one that follows it? 

ACT III. 

Scene I. 

Suggestion of Scene. A room in the palace ; in the rear and 
center in a great triple window with a window seat. Outside one 
can see the tops of great trees and the distant prospect. At one 
side is a great chest or strong box ; at the other a table with chairs 
about it and large record books upon it. On the same side, against 
the wall, is a single throne chair, with a canopy over it. 

Throughout the scene the duke rests fitfully in the window seat, 
looking out the window, as if searching with his eyes the path 
of his wandering daughter. What he says to Oliver is said without 
violence, but it is none the less forcible. 
3. " Argument," subject. 

17. " Extent," a legal document to compel the payment of a 
debt. 

Questions on the Scene. 1. How is punishment, or at least 
penitence, foreshadowed in this scene ? 2. The duke censures Oliver 
for not loving his brother ; is there not a very pertinent observation 
to be made upon the matter? 

Scene II. 

Suggestion of the Scene. A quiet nook between the hills, in 
the forest. The ground rises at the left, and the trees grow 
thickly there. To the right of the center is a great tree with low 
swinging branches. Beyond it one catches glimpses of the brook 
that "brawls along the wood" as its ripples flash in a beam of sun- 
light that comes down through the trees. In the distance one hears 
the tinkle of sheep bells. 

2. " Thrice-crowned ; " an allusion to the fact that Proserpine, 
Cynthia, and Diana were sometimes supposed to be the same god- 
dess. Orlando addresses, of course, the moon. 



ACT III. SCENE 11. Ill 

4. Who is the ' huntress ' ? 
6. " Character," write. 

10. " Unexpressive," inexpressible, not to be described. 

15. "Naught," worthless. 

28. " May complain of good breeding," may complain of the 
lack of good breeding ; an idiom of the poet's time. 

30. " Natural philosopher," as opposed to a metaphysician. The 
shepherd could reason about the affairs of nature, but he did not 
attempt to see the underlying causes of phenomena. A critic sug- 
gests that the word natural was a common name for a fool. Touch- 
stone may have intended a quibble on the word. 

36. "All on one side ; " " explanatory of ' ill-roasted ' and not 
of * damned.' " Wright. 

41. " Parlous," dangerous. 

49. " Instance," give an instance, an example. 

50. " Still," constantly. 

51. " Fells," the skin of the sheep with the wool on. 

62. " Worms-meat." " It is not impossible that this expres- 
sion may have struck Shakespeare in a book which he evidently 
read the treatise of " Vincentio Saviolo, in which a printer's device 
is found with the motto : ' O WORMS MEATE. O FROATH : O 
VANITIE. WHY ART THOV SO INSOLENT?'" Wright. 

64. " Perpend," consider. 

65. " Flux of a cat," that is, civet, which is found in a gland 
of a cat called a civet. It has a strong odor, which is offensive 
unless the substance is diluted with some other substance, when it 
becomes a delicate perfume. 

68. " Incision." Furness quotes Heath, — " That is, God give 
thee a better understanding; thou art very raw and simple as yet. 
The expression probably alludes to the common proverbial saying,, 
concerning a very silly fellow, that he ought to be cut for the 
simples." Wright says, — " The reference is to the old method ot 
cure for most maladies by blood-letting." 

71. " Content with my harm," " Patient under my own mis- 
fortunes." Wright. 

80. " Ind," India. The line evidently means, — From eastern 
to western India. 

84. " Lined," drawn. 

89. " Right butter women's rank to market." Much has been 
said in explanation of this expression. Touchstone probably means 
that the verses Rosalind reads jog along as mechanically as the 
country women who go along at a jog-trot, carrying their butter to 
market. 

95. "Cat will after kind; " an allusion to an old proverb. 

109. " Graff," graft. 

1X0. " Medlar." There is a pun here on medler. Furness quotes 



112 



NOTES AND QUESTIONS. 



Beisly, — " The MespUus germanica, a tree, the fruit of which is 
small, and in shape like an apple, but fiat at the top, and only fit 
to be eaten when mellow or rotten." 

112. "Right," true. 

1 1 8. "For," because. 

120. "Civil;" used as opposed to "unpeopled" and "desert" 
— civilized. 

122. " Erring," " wandering." Wright. 

131. "Quintessence." The mediaeval philosophers believed that 
all things were composed of four essences — earth, fire, air and 
water ; but there was a fifth essence, or quintessence, which was 
the spirit of things. 

137. "Helen's," the woman whose fatal beauty caused the war 
about Troy. Orlando did not want his Rosalind to have Helen's 
heart, because that was false. 

138. " Cleopatra," the beautiful queen of Egypt who was the 
ruin of Mark Antony. Shakespeare wrote a play called "Antony 
and Cleopatra." 

139. " Atalanta's better part." Atalanta was a maiden who 
challenged her suitors to run her a race ; see the classical dictionary. 
What her " better part " was, nobody has ever been able to explain 
certainly. 

140. " Lucretia's," a Roman matron renowned for her chastity. 
142. " Synod," a church council. 

144. " Touches," features, traits. 

153- "Scrip," the bag or pouch carried by a shepherd; the 
" scrippage " was the contents of the scrip. 

163. " Should be," was. 

164. " Nine days etc." This is an allusion to the old saying, — 
" a nine day's wonder." 

165. "Palm tree." There are no palm trees in France; Shake- 
speare was careless about such details ; perhaps he copied the error 
from Lodge's novel, from which he got most of the story of the 
play. 

166. " Pythagoras." This ancient philosopher taught the doctrine 
of the transmigration of souls, that is, that a soul goes from one 
body to another as the centuries go by, never dying, but always liv- 
ing anew. Rosalind says that her sotil was once in an Irish rat. It 
is said that rats were rimed to death in Ireland in former times. 
Perhaps there is some kinship between this story and that of the 
Pied Piper of Hamelin. 

168. "Trow," know. 

173. " Friends to meet etc." Wright quotes an old proverb, — 
" Friends may meet, but mountains never greet." 
178. " Petitionary," entreating. 
181. " Out of all hooping," beyond all expression of wonder. 



ACT III. SCENE II. - 113 

183. " Good my complexion! " Much has been conjectured about 
this, Wright says, — " Rosalind appeals to her complexion not to 
betray her by changing color." 

184. "Caparisoned," dressed. "Doublet and hose;" see note on 
" weaker vessel," Act II, Scene IV, line 6. ' 

185. "One inch^of delay etc." There have been many attempts 
to explain, and some to amend, this, but none entirely satisfactory. 
Wright's interpretation is, — " If you delay the least to satisfy my 
curiosity I shall ask you in the interval so many more questions that 
to answer them will be like embarking on a voyage of discovery over 
a wide and unknown sea." 

196. "Stay," wait for. ' ■ 

200. " Sad brow," serious expression. ^ 

207. "Wherein went he?" how was he clothed? *' 

2X1. " Gargantua's mouth." Gargantua was the giant in a work 

of Rabelais. • ' . 

218. "Atomies," as Milton says, "the gay motes that people the 

sunbeams." "Resolve," solve.' , ' ' 

220. "Observance," 'attention. ■ ; V 

222. " Jove's tree." The oak was sacred to Jove. 

230. " 'Holla,'" a word used to check a horse. ' *;* 

231. " Furnished," clothed. ' >' 

232. There is a pun in this line. 

233. "Burden," under-song. "Thou bringest me out," you put 
me out. ' ' ' :' " 

238. "Slink:" What does "slink" express that pass would not? 

247. " Moe," more. Moe was used only with the ■ plural, nwre 
with both singular and plural. 

257. "Conned them out of rings," learned them out of rings. 
It was formerly the custom to engrave short verses in rings. 

259. "Right painted cloth." The allusion is to the old custom 
of ornamenting the unplastered walls of rooms with painted csin- 
vas ; in addition to the pictures there were often mottoes. * 

264. " Breather," living person. *; 

269. "Troth," truth. ' ; , 

279. " I will speak to him etc." Fancy the rilannishsw'agger that 
Rosalind puts on here. '». 

293. "Withal," with. . ^^ '.; 

298. " Se'nnight," seven nights, a week. . , . 

318. " Cony," rabbit. , . . ' :, 

319. "Kindled," brought forth, born. 

321. " Purchase," acquire. •, . - . 

324. " Inland," see note on Act II, Scene VII, line 96. ■ 
335. " Physic," medicine. . ■ ' 

340. " Fa^cy-monger," love-monger. 



U4 NOTES AND QUESTIONS. 

^41. " Quotidian," fever that is continuous rather than inter- 
mittent, 

349. " Blue eye," that is^ with blue circles about the eyes. Blue 
eyes, that is, eyes with the blue iris, were called grey eyes in Shake- 
speare's time. 

350. " Unquestiotiable," unwilling to be questioned. 
352. " Having," possession. 

354. "'Bonnet;" the word was formerly used to mean a hat. 
" Unhanded," without a band. 

357. " Point-device," exact, faultless. 

380. *' Moonish," changeable. 

3f)ii " Liver." In old times the liver was supposed to be the seat 
of love, of courage, and perhaps also of other passions. Hamlet 
speaks of himself as being " pigeon-Mver'd," meaning that his liver 
is white, as the cowardly pigeon's was supposed to be. 

The acting of this scene is particularly difficult, for reasons that 
will appear in studying the questions that follow. A hint is here 
given from th6 works of Richard Grant White; it concerns the end 
of the scene. 

" Now here most Rosalinds go shyly off with Celia and leave 
Orlando to come dan"gHng after them; but when I read the passage 
I s^e Ganymede jauntily slip his arm into Orlando's, and lead him 
off, laughingly lecturing him about his name; then turn his head 
over his shoulder, and say, 'Come, sister! ' leaving Celia astounded 
at the boundless ' cheek ' of her enamored cousin," 

Questions on the Scene. 1. Would it be correct to say that 
the poem that Orlando reads is the keynote of the scene? 2. Show 
in wnat way^ the manner and the dress of Corin and Touchstone 
differ, 3. Touchstone intimates that his remarks about the shep- 
herd's life are philosophy; is it true? 4, In Touchstone's speech 
beginning, " Why, if thou never wast etc.," the wit consists in an 
intentional mistake in logic; what i§ the mistake? 5. Does Corin 
take all this conversation seriously or otherwise? 6. If the theme 
of the scene is love, why all this foolery between the shepherd and 
the jester? 7. Rosalind enters reading a paper; does this suggest 
any other event in the scene? 8. When Touchstone recites his 
poem, he * singsongs/ and keeps time with his bauble ; why ? 9. 
With what expression does Rosalind regard Touchstone as he recites 
his lines? 10. Celia reads the poem she has found; indicate the 
different manner in which Rosalind, Touchstone and Corin listen to 
it. II. After Celia has finished, Rosalind intimates that the poem 
is "tedious." Does she truly think so? 12. Later on, Rosalind 
pretends not to like the verses; why does she do so? 13. Rosalind 
asks, " Nay, but who is it ? " Is it possible that she does not 
know? 14. If she does know, why does she ask so persistently? 
15. In this portion of the scene is she serious or gay, patient or im- 



ACT III. SCENE III. 115 

patient, active or quiet? Does she speak slowly or rapidly, with 
much expression or little? Is she stupid or animated? 16. In this 
portion of the scene is Rosalind in her masculine or her feminine 
character? Explain fully. 17. Why does Celia so long delay her 
answer? 18. In the speech beginning, *'Alas the day!" wherein 
consists the humor? 19. Celia says, "Cry 'holla' to thy tongue." 
What does this indicate as to Rosalind's manner throughout the 
scene ? 20. As she says, " O ominous ! " how does Rosalind's man- 
ner change? 21. As Orlando and Jaques enter, Rosalind and Celia 
hide behind the big tree, from which they peep out occasionally. 
Celia has a hard time to keep Rosalind from betraying their hid- 
ing place. At what speeches of the two men would Rosalind be 
likely to be most in danger of making such betrayal? 22. How 
much is Orlando affected by Jaques's melancholy? 23. Someone 
has described Jaques as affected and churlish; explain. 24. After 
Orlando has said, " He is drowned etc.," there follow two speeches 
that explain the joke; do you regard this a blemish or a beauty in 
the scene? 25. Where, hereabouts, and how, does Rosalind's man- 
ner suddenly change ? 26. Why is the speech beginning " Then there 
is no true lover in the forest," particularly adroit? 27. Does Or- 
lando suspect the identity of the young man he has met ? 28. If 
not, then is his love for Rosalind nourished by his acquaintance 
with the young man ? 29, Something in the Speech beginning, " I 
have been told etc./' shows the nimbleness of Rosalind's wit; what? 
30. In Rosalind's speech beginning, " No, I will not cast etc.," 
there is the same adi-oitness suggested in question 26 ; explain, 31. 
Why does Rosalind pretend not to believe that Orlando is in love? 
32. Does the speech beginning, "A lean che,ek etc." give the true 
symptoms of love? 33. The scene is full of pretence on Rosalind's 
part; is this a masculine or a feminine foible? 34. Shakespeare's 
plays often throw side lights on the manners and customs of his 
time; do you not find such a light thrown on the way of treating 
a certain disease in that former day? 35- In Rosalind's jesting in 
this scene, do you detect the shadow of the sorrow of her and her 
father's banishment? Should the actress indicate such an underlying 
sadness? 36. Has Rosalind's quickness of retort any sting in it? 
37. Where in the scene does Rosalind appear most womanly, where 
most mannish? 

Scene III. 

Suggestion of Scene. The scene does not change. Celia has no 
sooner followed her cousin and Orlando, very much shocked at the 
former's conduct, than Touchstone enters, holding Audrey's hand, 
and almost dragging her, so stupidly and sleepily does she drag 
behind. He speaks to her in a long-drawn tone, modulating his 
voice from high to low in key, as one does to a child. 



116 NOTES AND QUESTIONS. 

6. " Ovid," a celebrated Roman poet ; he was banished from 
Rome to live among a Gothic tribe on the banks of the Euxine Sea. 

7. " Knowledge ill-inhabited," knowledge ill-lodged. Jaques 
thinks classical learning, such as the allusion to Ovid, quite mis- 
placed in the mind of a fool. 

II. "Great reckoning." Furness quotes Moberly, — "To have 
one's poetry not understood is worse than the bill (reckoning) of 
a first-class hotel in a pot-house." 

14. " Honest," virtuous. 

28. " Material," full of matter, thought. 

31. "Foul," homely. 

37. " Sir Oliver Martext." The title of Sir was given to those 
who had taken a bachelor's degree at the university. 

43. " Stagger," hesitate. 

51. " Rascal," a deer in poor bodily condition. 

66. " God 'ild you," God yield, or reward, you. 

67. "Toy," a trifle. 

68. " Be covered." Jaques, on approaching, has removed his 
hat out of deference to Audrey; and Touchstone, pretending to 
think the honor intended foi" himself, puts on a very grand look, and 
says, " Be covered," that is, put on your hat. 

69. " Motley," see note on Act II, Scene VII, line 13. 

70. " Bow," yoke. 

71. "Bells; " the tamed falcon was made to svear bells. 
86. " O sweet Oliver," a fragment from an old ballad. 
93. " Flout," mock, make fun of. 

Questions on the Scene, i. Audrey's whole bearing is one of 
open-mouthed stupidity ; with whom in the play does she offer the 
strongest contrast ? 2. Touchstone is described by a critic as " the 
Hamlet of motley." If you have read " Hamlet," determine the 
meaning of the expression. 3. What disparity does Jaques find 
between the two lovers ? 4. Why does Touchstone apologize for his 
prospective bride? 5. Is Touchstone in earnest when he says "it 
will be a good excuse for me hereafter to leave my wife " ? 

Scene IV. 

Suggestion of Scene. The scene remains the same. The two 
young women enter rapidly, Celia pursuing Rosalind and endeavor- 
ing to console her. Rosalind turns hither and thither, endeavoring 
to keep back her tears. 

8. " Judas's." The beard of Judas is usually represented as 
red ; from this it may be seen what the " dissembling color " is. 

14. " Holy bread," bread used in^he sacrament. 

15. " Cast," cast off. " Diana," the beautiful goddess of the 



ACT III. SCENE V. 117 

chase. Slie was also the goddess of chastity, which is the point here. 

16. " Sisterhood," that is, of nuns. 

24. " Covered goblet ; " " which having a convex top is more 
hollow than a goblet without a cover." Wright. 

29. " Tapster," a drawer of beer. 

30. " Reckonings," bills, amounts of beer drunk. 

39. " Quite traverse," " like an unskilful tilter, who breaks his 
staff across instead of striking it full against his adversary's shield 
and so splitting it lengthwise." Wright. 

40. " Puisny," unskilful. 

48. " Pageant," an old kind of play. 

49. " The pale complexion of true love." " Sighing, a com- 
mon malady of lovers, was supposed to take the blood from the 
heart." Wright. 

Questions on the Scene, i. What contrast do you find in Rosa- 
lind's state of mind in this scene and in Scene II? Note that 
Shakespeare makes his heroine a young woman of " infinite variety." 
2. Does Rosalind seem to have sought the duke, her father, as she 
said she was going to do? 3. Why does Rosalind yield readily to 
the invitation brought by Corin? 

Scene V. 

Suggestion of Scene. The scene remains the same. The two 
lovers come in rapidly, Phebe swinging herself from side to side 
as if to push Silvius away with her elbows; and he pursues her 
pleading i!i the most woe-begone fashion. Mr. Joseph Jefferson says 
that a love scene, if properly acted, is a most amusing sight to 
observers, however serious it may be to the two lovers. Such is the 
case here. 

13. " Atomies; " see note on Act III, Scene II, line 218. 

2z. " Cicatrice," usually a scar ; but here the meaning evi- 
dently is only a slight mark or impression. " Capable impressure," 
impression that can be seen. 

29. " Fancy," love. 

39. " Without candle ; " that is, beauty that is not bright. 

43. " Of nature's sale-work," what nature makes for sale, not 
for the love of good workmanship. " 'Od's my little life," a mild 
oath. 1 

47. " Bugle," " black, as beads of black glass which are called 
bugles." Wright. 

50. " Foggy south ; " fog and rain come from the south in 
England. v 

60. " Sell," that is, yourself ; marry. " Not for all markets," it 
isn't every one that would have you. 

66. " Foulness," ugliness. 



Ii3 NOTES AND QUESTIONS. 

78. " Abased in sight," deceived. 

80. " Dead shepherd." Christopher Marlowe, a contemporary 
o£ Shakespeare, and the author of several remarkable plays, is the 
shepherd, or poet, meant. The following line is quoted from his 
" Hero and Leander." " Saw," wise saying. 

88. " Extermined," exterminated. 

94. " Erst," at first, once. 

106. " Bounds," boundaries, grounds. 

107. " Carlot," clown, countryman. 
122. " Mingled damask," white and red. 
124. " Parcels," detaiL 

135. " Straight," immediately. 

137. " Passing," exceedingly. 

Questions on the Scene, i. What words of Phebe's early in the 
scene show her to be a spiteful young woman? 2. Rosalind comes 
from behind the tree, clearB her throat noisily, leans against the 
big rock, folds her arms and speaks commandingly, first to one 
and then to the other of the lovers. What effect has all this strut 
on the audience? For it must be remembered that Shakespeare 
was always seeking some dramatic effect. 3. If you were to play 
the part of Phebe, how would you express your utter astonishment 
at the unexpected meeting with so handsome a youth in the almost 
uninhabited forest? 4. What feelings does Rosalind's long speech 
engender in the minds of Phebe and Silvius? 5. What does Sil- 
vius find in Phebe to be enamored of? 6. When Rosalind says, 
" Why look you so upon me ? " Phebe, perhaps, looks down, fingers 
her skirt nervously, and then looks up ruefully. What qualities in 
Rosalind have brought about a certain change in her? 7. Is* or is 
not " love at first sight " the rule in this play ? 8. Is there any- 
thing in the scene to prove that " love is blind " ? 9. What is there 
in the scene to verify the old saying that love and pity are akin? 
10. Do you find anything in Silvius's speech beginning, " So holy 
etc." that seems a bit unmanly? 11. After Rosalind goes away, 
Phebe makes a long speecli, during which she frequently looks over 
her shoulder in the direction of the departed one. Explain her con- 
flicting emotions. 12. Wherein does the humor of this speech con- 
sist? 13. If Silvius and Phebe eventually marry, can you conjecture 
which one will rule the house? 14. What further evidence of 
Phebe's spiteful nature is found near the end of the scene? 

Questions on the Act. i. What steps in the story does the act 
set forth? 2. What new love theme is begun? 3. Can you antici- 
pate the end of the story? 4. Show that the general theme of the 
story appears even more plainly than before. 5. In the case of the 
wooing of Silvius, do you think that anticipation may be more, or 
less, pleasant than realization? 6. What anticipation have you in 
the case of Orlando and Rosalind? 



ACT IV. SCENE I. iig 

ACT IV, 

Scene I. 

Suggestion of Scene. The entire act Is in the forest, and one 
scene is enough for the whole. Let us fancy that the foreground is 
bare save for one or two trees. At the rear of the stage, is the rep- 
resentation of a rocky cliff, extending the entire length of the stage, 
from left to right. Jagged rocks jut out, partly concealed by the 
vines and low evergreens that grow over them. A path leads down 
from the unseen summit. It is very precipitous, and the^ observer 
does not suspect its presence until he sees some one coming jjown 
the almost perpendicular side of the cliff. 
6. " Censure," judgment. 

14. " Nice." What does this word mean here ? Is this the 
correct meaning? How is the word usually misused at the present 
time? 

17. "Simples." The word is used figuratively here; dimples are 
herbs that are compounded to make a mixture for medicinal pui> 
poses. 

18. " Humorous," full of whims. 
^8. "An," if. 

31. " Disable," disparage. 

43. " Clapped him o' the shoulder," put him under arrest. 

50. "Jointure," an estate settled on a wife. 

54. " Beholding," beholden, indebted. 

S6. " Prevents," anticipates. 

61. " Leer," cheek, complexion. 

67. " Gravelled," puzzled. 

87. "Videlicet," Latin for, that is. 

88. " Troilus." It would be well to look up the story of Troilus 
in the classical dictionary, and see whether Rosalind was right 
about the fate of Troilus. Also, look up " Leander," a little fur- 
ther on. 

95. "Found." This word is used in the technical sense whicp 
it has when used by a coroner and his jury. 

125. "Goes before the priest," goes faster than the priest. ]Rosa- 
lind means that she takes Orlando before Celia, the priest, afeks h^r 
whether she will. 

137. "New-fangled," changeable. 

J 39. " Diana in the fountain." The image of Diana in a foun- 
tain was common in the poet's time, 

141. " Hyen," hyena. 

152. "Wit, whither wilt?" "An expression of not uncommon 
occurrence, the origin of which is unknown, it appears to have 
been used to check anyone who was talking too fast." Wright. 



I20 NOTES AND QUESTIONS. 

i6i. " Go your ways," go on. 

170. " Pathetical." The word is defined in several ways. Per- 
haps it is nothing more than an intensive. One commentator says, 
" affection-moving." 

'184. "Bay of Portugal," Wright says, — -"It (the expression) is, 
however, still used by sailors to .denote that portion of the sea off 
the coast of Portugal from Oporto to the headland of Cintra. The 
watei' there is extessively deep, and within a distance of forty miles 
■from* the shore it attains a depth of upwards 1400 fathoms, which 
in Shakespeare's time would be praetically unfathomable." 
' 188. "Spleen,-" -caprice. 

Questions on the Scen'e. i. After many questions about the 
nature of the melancholy of fjaques, we have his own answer. Is it 
a good answer? Does he s.ay what is the essential characteristic 
of his Tnelancholy ? 2. How much effect does the melancholy of 
Jaques have on Rosalind? 3. Does not Rosalind show Jaques that 
he is a cynic? 4. A critic already quoted said that the cause of the 
m'elanchbly of Jaques was egotism. Is this statement anything like 
our understanding of kosalind's judgment, that cynicism was his 
malady? 5. Have you ever known such a person as Rosalind 
describes in the first part of the speech beginning with the words, 
" Farewell, Monsieur Traveller " ? 6. Which of the two, Rosalind or 
Orlando, is the more anxious to keep up the pretence of their being 
lovers? 7. Are Orlando and Rosalind in precisely the same mood 
about this pretence? If she is active, what is he? 8. It is said 
that a wedding is the bride's show; what that concerns Rosalind's 
view of the mock wedding is corroborative of this? 9. Does the 
scene make dimmer or brighter the heroic luster of Orlando? 10. 
From Celia's complaint that Rosalind has simply misused their sex, 
what do you infer about the latter's actions in the scene? 11. Has 
^Rosalind misused her sex? Does she seem too bold? 12. Show 
the variety of emotions through which Rosalind passes .during the 
scene, ahd account for the difficulty of the acting. 13. Explain any 
details of the scene that account for the dramatic strength. 14. 
Have you found any words in the scene that you have heard quoted ? 

Scene II. 

Suggestion of Scene. As Rosalind and Celia go away, we hear 
high up on the cliff the voices of hunters, and the sound of a bugle. 
In a moment the foremost of the party appears, and then the others, 
winding down over the rocks and among the low trees that grow 
profusely on the precipitous sides of the cliff. The last of the 
hunters carries a deer over his shoulder. 

I. " ICilled the deer?" Furness quotes Flower, — "On the 
occasion of the first representation of As You Like It in the Me- 



ACT IV. SCENE III. ' I2i 

morial Theater (a theater built at Stratlord-on-Avon in memory of 
the poet), April 30th, 1879, a fallow deer was carried on the stage 
by the foresters (in this scene) which had been that morning shot 
by H. S. Lucy, Esq., of Charlecote Park, out of the herd descended 
from that upon which Shakespeare is said to have made a raid in 
his youth. The deer is now stuffed, and carried on whenever the 
play is acted at Stratford." 

12. "The rest shall bear this burden," has been much dis- 
cussed, as in the first folio it was printed as a part of the song. It 
is, however, merely a direction to the singers to sing the " burden," 
in answer to the first part sung only by the foresters. The burden 
is probably " Then sing him home." 

14. " Crest." A pun, probably. A crest is a coat of arms ; the 
horn is also the crest of the deer. 

Questions on the Scene, i. Referring to the previous scene and 
looking on to the next one, what seems . to be the purpose of this 
scene — that is. Scene II ? 2. Has it a mechanical or a dramatic 
purpose? Or both? 

Scene III. 

Suggestion of Scene. The scene remains the same. Rosalind 
enters anxiously, and Celia sleepily, rubbing her eyes. 

2. " Here much Orlando ; " an idiom meaning that the speaker 
does not see much of Orlando. It is ironical, of course. 

17. "As rare as, phoenix." The phoenix was said to have been 
born once in five hundred years. Sir John Mandeville gave an in- 
teresting account of it. " 'Ods my will ! " A mild oath. 

23. " Turned into etc." That is, you are suft'ering from the 
very worst form of love. 

25. " Freestone-color'd," " of the color of Bath brick, a com- 
mon article of domestic use." Wright, 

35. " Ethiope," an inhabitant of Ethiopia, where all the people 
were black. 

48. " Vengeance," mischief. 

SO. " Eyne," eyes. 

53. " Aspect," " an astrological term used to denote the favor- 
able appearance of the planets." Wright. 

59. " Kind," nature. 

70. " Tame snake," an expression formerly used to mean a poor 
worthless fellow. 

75. " Purlieus," the edge or boundary of a forest. 

77. " Bottom," dale, valley, perhaps traversed by a stream. 

78. " Osiers," willows. 

85. " Favor," looks. " Bestows," bears. 

86. " Ripe," grown-up. 



122 NOTES AND QUESTIONS. 

92. "Napkin," handkerchief. 

108, "^Nimble in threats," making quick threatening motions 
with its head. 

III. "Indented glides;" a description of the sinuous motion of 
the snake. 

121. " Render," describe. 

130. "Hurtling," noise. 

139. " Recotintments," narratives. 

Questions on the Scene, i. Considering that Silvius has said 
that he would gladly undertake to take a saucy letter to Ganymede, 
how does he now show that he is not a man of pride and honor? 2. 
In the portion of the scene where Rosalind reads the letter to Silvius, 
wherein does the humor consist? 3. Wherein does the pathos con- 
sist? 4. What is the dramatic effect of the entrance of Oliver? 5. 
What are Rosalind's feelings and action when she says, " I am : what 
must we understand by this ? " 6. There were never lions in France. 
Can you excuse Shakespeare for using one in the play? 7. Find 
a place where " you " is emphasized in three successive lines ; what 
emotion does this emphasis indicate? 8. Where in the scene is an 
evidence that the end of the play is near? 9. What new food has 
Rosalind's love for Orlando to feed upon? 10. Where does Rosa- 
lind for a moment wholly forget her doublet and hose? 11. 
Wherein does the humor consist in what is said about counterfeit- 
ing? 12. Is Rosalind's "variety" greater or less than in previous 
scenes? 13. What incidents are well selected for their purpose in 
the play? 14. Is the scene more or less dramatic than the previous 
one? 

Questions on the Act. i. Summarize the events of the act. 2-. 
Can you tell positively whether the play is to turn out a comedy or 
a tragedy? 3. What comment can now be made on the degree of 
Orlando's heroism? 

ACT V. 

Scene I. 

Suggestion of Scene. The forest, as ever; a low hill, formed 
mainly of jutting rock, occupies the right foreground, and from it a 
spring of pure water gushes, to flow down through the wood. The 
rest of the foreground is filled with trees, while farther away is a 
cottage, and in the distance are the purple hills. 

Touchstone's treatment of William is very amusing. As the 
former begins his last long speech he takes William by the hand 
and begins to jerk him to and fro, to William's fear and utter con- 
sternation. The poor fellow is finally cast into outer darkness. 
12. " Flouting," joking. " Hold," restrain ourselves. 



ACT V. SCENE 11. 123 

14. " God ye good even," God give you good even. 

42. " Ipse," the Latin word for he. 

53. " Bastinado," cudgel. " Bandy," contend with. 
Questions on the Scene. 1. Touchstone says something about a 
heathen philosopher opening his mouth; what, in his immediate sur- 
roundings, suggested open mouths to Touchstone? 2, What is the 
purpose of this speech about the heathen philosopher, and the one 
that follows about the figure in rhetoric? 3. In this scene is found 
the climax of rural stupidity; explain. 4. Do you see any further 
reason than mere jeajousy for Touchstone's treatment of his rival? 



Scene II. 

Suggestion of Scene. The previous scene continues. As Touch- 
stone and Audrey, followed by Silvius, trip away, Orlando and 
Oliver come in from the opposite side of the stage. 

4. " Persever." Accent the word on the second syllable. 

17. "Brother." Why does Rosalind call Oliver brother? 

28. " Where you are," what you mean. 

30. " Thrasonical," " boastful ; from Thraso the boaster in the 
Eunuchus of Terence." Wright. *' Brag." Caesar's dispatch was 
" Veni, vidi, vici." It was sent after his defeat of Pharnaces in 
Pontus. 

36. " Incontinent," immediately. 

50. " Good conceit," good mind. 

54. " To grace me," to give me credit. 

57. "Damnable;" an allusion to the fact that in the poet's 
time, the use of magic was punishable by law. 

87. " Fantasy," fancy. 

89. " Observance," that is, of all wishes of the loved one. 
102. " Like the howling of Irish wolves," " dismal and monoto- 
nous." Wright. 

Questions on the Seene. i. In what mood is Orlando in the be- 
ginning of the scene, and what circumstance increases the intensity 
of the mood by contrast? 2. What occurs to change this mood? 3. 
Is Rosalind in the same mood? 4- Wh^t, according to Rosalind, 
is the psychological process of falling in love? 5. Is it the comic 
or the tragic element that predominates in the manner of Orlando, 
when he says, " I can live no longer by thinking " ? 6, Where is 
the end of the play strongly suggested? 7. Show how, after the 
entrance of Silvius and Phebe, the various moods of the different 
persons are reflected in their manner. 8. What emotion is strongly 
aroused by this scene? 



124 NOTES AND QUESTIONS. 

Scene III. 

Suggestion of Scene. The scene is the same. The two lovers 
enter light of foot and heart; at least Touchstone does, and Audrey 
as much so as possible. The meeting with the two pages is perhaps 
not as welcome all around as they would have it appear, but they 
make the best of it, and proceed to the business of the moment — a 
song. 

4. " A woman of the world," a married woman. 
10. " Clap into't roundly," go at it at once. 
Song. This song was not written by Shakespeare; he took it 
from a book of popular airs, and, it seems, changed the order of the 
stanzas to make it seem as bad as possible. 

16. " With a hey, etc." The line is a mere burden, a succession 
of meaniiT^less sounds. 

18. "King time," the time for giving the marriage ring. 

34. " Matter," thought. Wherein does the joke consist in this 
speech ? 

Questions on the Scene, i. Is the purpose of the scene dramatic 
or constructive? 2. There is something in the scene that suggests 
a question on Scene V of Act II; what is it? 3. Is Touchstone's 
judgment about the song correct? 4. Perhaps the song is intended 
to be used as ridicule of certain persons in the play; if so, whom? 

Scene IV. 

Suggestion of Scene. The scene continues, and becomes very 
brilliant as it progresses. The movements of the different char- 
acters may be easily fancied. .■ 

4. " Fear they hope," fear they have no certain grounds for 
believing that they will get what they wish. 

5. Scan. 

25. "To make these doubts all even;" the expression has the 
sense of, — to make these uncertainties certain, to fulfil these 
promises. 

27. " Touches," traits, similarities. " Favor," appearance. 

32. " Desperate studies," magical studies ; desperate because the 
magician was in danger both from vjod and man. 

35. " Toward," at hand. 

43. " Purgation," test, " Measure," a stately dance. 
45. "Undone three tailors." How, do you suppose? 
47. " Ta'en up," made up. 

53. " God 'ild you," God yield or reward you. 

54. " Copulatives," " those who desire to be joined in marriage." 
Wright. 

56. " Blood," passion, as anger. " Ill-favored," ugly. 



ACT V. SCENE IV. 125 

61. " Swift," quick-witted. 

62. " Bolt," arrow. There was a proverb which said that a 
fool's bolt was soon shot. " Dulcet diseases ; " these words do not 
seem to mean anything. 

67. " Seeming," seemly. 

•J2. " Quip," a jest. 

yZ' " Disabled," disparaged. 

77. " Countercheck," check, rebuke. 

87. " We quarrel in print, by the book." Attention has been 
called to the fact that Shakespeare must have had in mind a treatise 
by Vincentio Saviolo, in which directions are given for the use of 
the rapier and the dagger, for the proper methods of quarreling, of 
giving the lie, etc. Such were the outward flourishes of chivalry. 

102. " Stalking-horse," a horse, or the figure of a horse, under 
the protection of which the hunter could get near his game. 

103. " Presentation," semblance. 

" Hymen " was the god of marriage. It has been observed that 
it would be a little more logical if Rosalind had dressed one of 
the foresters as Hymen instead of having Hymen himself appear, 
since that makes her a true magician. 

This play was written at the time when masques were very pop- 
ular ; and the poet here gives us a touch of this form of entertain- 
ment, which differed from the play in this, among other respects, 
that the masque had much more elaborate scenery and display. 
Hymen and Rosalind appear, therefore, as if by magic, and are 
showily arrayed, and perhaps attended by loves. 

106. "Atone together," become reconciled. 

114. "H truth etc./' "if there be any truth in truth." Wright. 

146. " Fancy," love. 

152. "Address'd," prepared. 

153- "Conduct," guidance. 

163. " Offer'st fairly," givest good gifts. 

168. Supply one after " every." 

169. " Shrewd," evil. 

180. " Convertites," converts. 

197. " Good wine needs no bush." The wine-sellers formerly 
hung an ivy bush over their doors as a sign of their business. 

201. "Insinuate with you," "ingratiate myself with you." 
Wright. 

Qitestions on the Scene. 1. Show that Touchstone was a phi- 
losopher. 2. What class of persons does he ridicule? 3. At one 
place in the scene, Audrey nods ; her mouth falls open a bit, and we 
hear, as she sways sleepily, just the suggestion of a snore. Where 
is the place? 4. Can you form a picture of how Hymen is dressed? 
5. What person is most dissatisfied with the outcome of the events 
pictured in the play? 6. What person got more than was deserved? 



126 NOTES AND QUESTIONS: 

7. Show that the ends of justice are satisfied. 8. For what one of 
the newly married is disaster prophesied? 9. If you have read 
" Merchant of Venice," do you find any resemblance, and particu- 
larly in this scene, between Portia and Rosalind? 10. What differ- 
ences have you discovered between Audrey and Phebe? 11. 
Rosalind has not seemed to recognize her father until now; why? 

Questions on the Act. 1. How many threads of story are there, 
and how are they brought together at last? 3. Are there any loose 
threads? 3. Rosalind seems happy at the close of the play. Have 
her misfortunes ever soured her? That is, has she ever been bitter 
against her hard lot? Has she ever been gay outwardly, while 
evidently concealing consuming sorrow? 4. Finally, is Jaques 
soured against the world? Has he any deep grievance against it? 
What is the secret of his melancholy? 

Questions on the Play. i. What do you take to be the signifi- 
cance of the title of the play? 2. What is Rosalind's most difficult 
scene as regards the acting? 3. It has been said that when the 
people of this drama are called back to the court and the city, it 
will seem more like a punishment than a reward. Explain. 4. Does 
the interest of the play arise more from the events or from the 
characters and the sentiments? 5. How and where do mirth and 
melancholy contrast in the play? 6. Can you conjecture anything 
concerning the mental condition of the poet when he wrote this 
play ? 7. A critic has said that the play teaches, " Thou shalt love 
thy neighbor as thyself." Can you prove this ? If the moral is there, 
did Shakespeare intend to put it there? 8. What is the contrast 
between the court life and the life of the forest? 9. Dowden says 
that to understand the spirit of the play we must know that it was 
written between the histories and the great series of tragedies. 
What is the significance of this? 10. Of the two plays, "Merchant 
of Venice " and "As You Like It/' which has a strong tragic 
interest? 11. Miss Helen Faucet, one of the greatest actors of 
Shakespeare's plays, said she never reread this play without finding 
something new in it. What effect does this have on your opinion of 
Shakespeare? 12. She said further that in the very acting of the 
play she always learned something new. Why? 13. If you have 
read " Romeo and Juliet," contrast it with this as a love play. 14. 
Who is the stronger attraction — Rosalind or Juliet? 15. Why is 
the play a comedy? 16. The passion of love is evidently the theme 
or motive of the play; show from each scene that the poet observed 
the prtnciple of unity. 17. The common objection to Mrs. Siddons's 
Rosalind was that it was only " the smile of tragedy." Explain. 
18. Miss Ada Rehan's Rosalind is said to be a " creation." Explain. 
ig. We have described Orlando as heroic. But Ruskin says that 
Henry V. is the only hero in all Shakespeare's works. Why, 
do you think, would not Ruskin call Orlando heroic? 20. One of 



ACT V. SCENE IV. 



127 



Miss Wilkins's New England characters says that all the courting 
is not on one side. How does this remark apply to this play? 21. 
Which are more real — the characters or the events ? 22. What 
lines from the play are familiar quotations? 23. How do yau like 
it? 



SEP 16 1904 



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